Comment

I have a theory about why the Darryl Hair controversy refuses to die. It’s simply because his name is a sub-editor’s delight. Just think of the headlines you have read: “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”, “Darryl has a bad Hair day”, “Hair-raising story”, “Hair-e Krishna, Hair-e Rama”, "Inzaman pulls out Hair”. Okay, I made some of them up, but you see what I mean. Why on earth would sports writers let Darryl disappear from the scene?

If you think the theory is far-fetched, just think of this: there were two umpires on the field, not one, when the ball-tampering issue came up, and both umpires looked at the ball, decided it was tampered, imposed a penalty and called off the game. But who even remembers the name of the other umpire? FYI it was Billy Doctrove. “Ball tampering gets Billy’s goat”, “Billy finds ball Doctroved”.No, not the same ring to it.

But I wish sports editors would use the Hair name to get to the root of the problem (oh dear), use facts instead of Hairsay evidence and not let the Hair controversy dye out (It gets from bad to worse). Because there are real issues here and they affect the wonderful game of cricket in completely avoidable ways.

Because they are on the field longer than any of the players (sometimes that can be five full days), umpires are instantly recognised, become household names, and certainly get more attention than any umpire/referee in any other game. Do you, for example, remember who officiated at the Wimbledon finals?

The downside of all this recognition is that an umpire’s strong and weak points get quickly known, and his incompetence or prejudices get immediately exposed. We knew for example that David Shepherd, the tubby English umpire, was good-natured, and also superstitious (he hopped on one foot when the score had identical numerals. 111 for 1 and the camera would catch Shepherd doing his little jig). India’s S Venkatragavan wasn’t going to be the life of any party, but his decisions were always fair and always sound. Then both of them began to make mistakes, which told you one important thing about umpires: it’s not just the players who go into decline.

The West Indies’ Steve Bucknor, once respected for his near-faultless decisions, began to make errors of judgement as he grew older. His fame also clearly went to his head. I remember a Test match in Australia when Bucknor wagged his finger and summoned Parthiv Patel across the length of the pitch to give him a dressing down. Now Patel did deserve to be summoned somewhere, but that was back to Baroda to learn some wicket keeping. Bucknor’s behaviour was arrogance bordering on boorishness.

Because of that background, it’s likely that if Good Ole Steve had been standing in the Pakistan-England match, he would have behaved as Hair did. But would Simon Taufell, Aleem Dar and Billy Bowden, the game’s three best umpires? Almost certainly not. What about the South African, Rudi Koertzen? Given his record of not giving any lbw decisions, he would probably have sat on the fence on any issue.

Which brings me to my central point: why should a game of cricket depend on factors like umpiring competence, umpiring egos, umpiring personalities? No one comes to see a match because Simon Taufell is officiating. People come to see a game between two competing teams, and they pay good money to see individual players bat, bowl and field. No one has yet bought a ticket to see Steve Bucknor raise his finger. Or to laugh at the next Billy Doctrove gaffe.

Yet these gentlemen’s dreaded fingers play too large a role in cricket. Which Indian will forget the former England captain Mike Denness, who punished as many as six Indian cricketers (including Sachin Tendulkar) in the Centurion Test, for reasons which were purely visions in his own head?

The answer is to have younger umpires go through a training regime as rigorous as what the cricketers go through. The answer is to have many of them, so that each umpire isn’t stressed out officiating in too many games. The answer is to have a mandatory retirement age, and instant banishment for those who get puffed up with their self-importance a la Hair and Bucknor. Finally, the answer is to downgrade the importance of the umpire, from his present God-like stature to that of an ordinary official by bringing into use more and more technology.

That’s the only way to ensure that future umpires don’t make our Hair stand on end.