Hair 'cut' is not enough

Dr Kamal Wickremasinghe

The International Cricket Council (ICC) inquiry into Darrel Hair's handling of the final England-Pakistan Test match (the inquiry was not into ball tampering - there was none) finally restored justice, to a certain extent, by exonerating Inzamam-ul-Haq from the malicious charge of ball-tampering. The inquiry exposed Darrel Hair for the fraud he is.

Though Inzamam was found guilty of bringing the game into disrepute under the existing rules, Ranjan Madugalle applied common sense by imposing the minimum sentence of a ban for four one-day matches on Inzamam. It was clear that sympathy was all for the Pakistanis. Hair’s guess about ball tampering was discarded; baseless and unproven.

With the Madugalle ruling, the ICC went as far as it possibly could to support the rebellious Pakistan players at the expense of a crook umpire. It is a stance that needs to be encouraged.

The ICC needs to review the so-called 'traditions' of cricket in keeping with direction of evolution of the game as increasingly TV-controlled and money involved spectacle. Also, it is a sport growing predominantly in countries of south Asia: cricket is a poor second to Soccer as a national sport in the UK; played by an insular, elite club community in Australia (giving talented immigrants no chance to play); a minor sport played by a pool of just several hundred club players in New Zealand and an ever diminishing talent pool in the Caribbean. Contrary to this depressing scene, the game is flourishing in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, with many exciting players emerging. The ICC thinking and decision making dominated by a group of predominantly English and Australian fuddy-duddies (who claim to represent the 'traditions' of the game) seem to ignore this obvious trend of south Asia rapidly gaining the status of the global cricket hub.

Ranjan Madugalle's inquiry findings merely reflect one of the central tenets of the ICC thinking fashioned by the old 'traditions': the absolute supremacy of the umpire. While restoring justice by declaring Inzamam (and all other Pakistani players) innocent of ball tampering, Madugalle justified the punishment he imposed on Inzamam on the grounds of his challenging of the umpire's decision. Madugalle further elaborated on the concept of the supremacy of the umpire: "what is fundamental to the spirit of the game is [that] whether a decision is right or wrong, a player should accept it, comply and then complain. Inzamam has broken that fundamental spirit by protesting. He has been found guilty of twice deliberately refusing to come onto the field of play as a protest against the umpires."

Surely, such deeply rooted beliefs within the game's administrators need to be subjected to critical questioning in the aftermath of Darrell Hair's charge of ball tampering by the Pakistanis in the absence of any reasonable grounds to suspect the teams' integrity. The issue boils down to the fundamental question of whether a cricket umpire acquires, from his office, a degree of infallibility that he should never be challenged, (despite a disgraceful umpiring track record like that of Hair's against the south Asian teams!). A secondary question is whether the absolute and unquestioned authority of the match official is a prerequisite for the survival of cricket. This is an important issue since cricket does not involve obvious hierarchy in the playing field (apart from that of the teams).

Many cricket commentators including ex-players sees to be concerned that any questioning of umpiring decisions, including those made obviously in bad-faith, is undesirable due to the simple reason that such questioning undermines the authority of the umpire, possibly leading to anarchy. This culture of slavish respect for umpires is based historically on the public-school (primarily Eaton and Harrow - not to mention Royal and St Thomas's!) strategy of using cricket as preparation for 'real life' of serving the greater cause of the British Empire by inculcating 'respect for authority' in college boys. Such early infusion of unquestioning attitudes made it easier to recruit them into military service to achieve the mission of expanding the empire. (Harrow School for example, established a war memorial in 1926 as a monument to 644 Old Harrovians who had died in wars. The names of 344 others who died in the Second World War were later added on to panels of the museum). One might argue that the idea of unthinking respect for authority caused these losses!

The original concepts relating to umpire's authority, clearly, have to be reviewed in the light of trends in modern professional cricket involving large amounts of money and more importantly, played in and dominated by the most oppressed of the former colonies. In the modern game, the umpire's job description does not include teaching the players about God, the Queen and the ideals of Duty and Service; he is there to make a great TV spectacle work smoothly.

Those who favour the unquestioned authority of the umpire routinely ignore the potential for an umpire to abuse his authority. Though some bad umpiring can reasonably be considered honest mistakes by incompetent umpires, dishonest umpiring decisions are clearly recognised by those who are familiar with the game including its 'laws' (a misnomer) and the context such decisions are made in. Hair has given the lie to the concept of 'dignity of the umpire’s position' by acting without decency, impartiality and good sense.

Most people who have followed Australian cricket would remember the deeds of umpires like Lou Rowan, Tony Crafter and Steve Randell. (Randell, in the opinion of this writer, destroyed the career of the Sri Lankan batting dynamo Romesh Kaluvitarana, by shaking his confidence through a number of patently 'crook' LBW decisions against him in Australia. Like Muralitharan, the Australians led by Allan Border had earmarked him as a 'threat' following his impressive maiden test century against them in Colombo in 1992).

Darrel Hair is a serial perpetrator of such abuse: when he declared at The Oval that Pakistan were guilty of ball tampering, the Pakistanis were entitled to show their displeasure of the slur by returning late to the field. Hair clearly abused his authority further, by declaring that the match had been forfeited. This was after the Pakistanis returned to the field following their symbolic gesture. At that point, Hair was the only one who was not ready to carry on. Hair stopped the match going ahead by exploiting the concept of sanctity of the umpire’s office.

Those who are concerned that questioning of the umpires may lead to anarchy need to look at other sport: in tennis, an umpire’s decision can be challenged and have the player's view supported or rejected by television evidence: tennis has not imploded as a result. Football referees are routinely criticised after every match (as blind, incompetent or biased) and yet football survives.

In short, most dispassionate observers are likely to hold the view that a cricket umpire, like any other human being, should be held responsible for his own actions, especially when the sincerity of his action are in serious doubt. If an umpire behaves likes a crook, he must be judged as a crook rather than a special and protected person.

The cricket world needs change, quick.