Wednesday October 03, 2007

LONDON - Australian umpire Darrell Hair yesterday claimed he was unfairly used as a scapegoat after last year's forfeited test between England and Pakistan.

Hair, 55, began giving evidence at a London employment tribunal, where he is suing the International Cricket Council for racial discrimination over his sacking from top-level matches after the controversy at The Oval.

Hair said he believed the ICC wanted to blame him for the abandonment of the test on August 20, 2006.

He said that, immediately after the game, a series of meetings took place involving him and fellow umpire Billy Doctrove, ICC representatives and Pakistan team officials.

At the meetings, Hair and Doctrove were asked to consider resuming the match the next day.

Hair told ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed the umpires did not have the power to restart a match once it was declared over, but said Speed could order a resumption.

"In my opinion, these meetings were instituted to put the blame for the match being abandoned squarely on my shoulders," Hair told the tribunal.

Hair, who is white, said he and black West Indian umpire Doctrove had both decided to penalise Pakistan for suspected ball tampering on the fourth day of the fourth test.

And both umpires agreed to award the match to England when Pakistan refused to take the field in protest.

"It is not and has never been the practice that there would be a senior umpire," Hair said.

"It is also clear from Mr Doctrove's statement that I did not take the senior role in determining that the ball had been tampered with."

Hair was no longer allowed to umpire in the upper echelons of the game, while Doctrove suffered no censure at all.

In his opening statements, ICC barrister Michael Beloff QC told the tribunal Hair was by far the senior umpire in terms of experience and "the moving force" in what occurred.

Beloff said the decision to stand him down from matches involving test nations had nothing to do with skin colour, but was made "in the interests of cricket" and to avoid the risk of a repeat of The Oval controversy.

"Exactly the same decision would have been reached had Mr Hair been black or brown or even green," Beloff said.

The ICC board decided to ban Hair from top matches last November on the recommendation of a three-man panel of members.

The panel included Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Nasim Ashraf, who had previously called for sanctions against Hair, New Zealand Cricket chairman Sir John Anderson, who also supported action against Hair, and Zimbabwe Cricket president Peter Chingoka.

Hair's barrister, Robert Griffiths QC, told the hearing Ashraf's inclusion meant he had acted as "prosecutor, judge and jury".

Griffiths also said a tape recording of further discussion by the entire ICC board on Hair's future was "missing".

"There is, whether by accident or design, no record whatsoever of this most critical aspect of the board meeting," Griffiths told the tribunal.

"Is this cricket's Watergate? Hairgate?"

The hearing was adjourned until today.

- AAP