Hair today, where tomorrow?

Aha, Darrel Hair has done it once again, vomited
up his almighty sense of right and wrong,
made judgements which will echo long after
his precocious sense of umpire proportion
has been dismembered forensically
and patently identified as fantasy.
It will engender a lot of unnecessary palaver
and more hot air, something synonymous
with his name as cricketing controversy
seems to reign wherever Hair pontificates at wicket.
His complaint this time, some blasé Pakistani cricketer
allegedly cheating, a crude case of ball tampering,
Jesus wept, supposedly done when you’re out in front
and all but assured of winning. So how inept can he be?
Take a dozen balls fifty five overs old and see for yourself,
compare them all together, decide which is tampered with
by inspection alone. Remember, there is no evidence
other than the ball, no TV replay or insistent commentary
or even a solitary one of 20,000 suspicious pairs of eyes
to support your decision. Then make your call.
Hardly fair isn’t it! But then your name isn’t Darrel Hair…
© I.D. Carswell

Darrel called ball tampering on the Pakistani cricketers during the fourth Test (supposedly in conjunction with his fellow umpire – whom he could easily intimidate) and awarded five runs to England. Rain stopped play soon after so Tea was taken early. The Pakistani’s failed to return to the wicket after Tea, they were discussing the implications of the insult. At the end of Tea Darrel and fellow umpire waited for a few minutes or so at the wicket. When the Pakistani’s failed to show they took the bails, awarding the game to England. The Pakistani’s subsequently returned to find the game abandoned. Since this unprecedented event Darrel has offered his resignation for US$0.5m, and withdrawn it. The text of his email to his governing body was made public thus effectively and permanently incapacitating his credentials for continued employment as an umpire. Or so one would think! The question is, were the Pakistani’s guilty of ball tampering in the first instance? Well, we’ll never know…