It came as an unpleasant surprise for me to see the headlines 'Darrell Hair reinstated by ICC' yesterday in the papers and all the time-pass websites. I absolutely hate him.
He first hit the limelight during the Srilankan tour of Australia, Circa 1995, when he kept on no-balling Murali for what he felt was chucking. I vaguely remember watching the match at my uncle's place-only place to watch cable TV those days-finding the entire no-balling fiasco pretty amusing. I was a Srilanka-hater those days for reasons i don't remember and i was enjoying srilankans being at the receiving end but my uncle was at his abusing best directing his tirades at Hair. Those days i cudn't understand all the sub-continental criticism of the Umpire-in-question, but now i do. He's the epitome of Australian arrogance, one among the countless firangis who believe they are superior and judicious compared to the so-called browns hailing from the lands of chaos. Hair's bio would be full of controversies, right from his first test, when he a gave string of poor lbw decisions against Indians which ultimately lead to their defeat by 38 runs, till his last match as an umpire in which he alleged the Pakistanis of ball tempering. I am sure Hair would have seen no reason in all his criticism, in his view he is just upholding the laws of cricket. Another good example of this firangi behavior is the incident that occurred in the Sydney test of the recently concluded India tour of Australia - the umpire Mark Benson consulted Ricky Ponting instead of the leg umpire to decide whether the ball from ganguly's blade was caught properly or not. It was an outrageous moment, something which seconds my earlier hypothesis. The enormous clout that BCCI enjoys in ICC these days made sure Mark Benson wouldn't go unrepentive , but it was a crime he shouldn't have committed in the first place. I have no doubt in believing the reason for Hair's reinstatement is to appease ECB and CA who are getting increasingly insecure about their position in ICC with the emergence of the ebullient BCCI.
