Just when you thought the cricketing world was just about getting back to normal again, things settling down nicely, England winning a couple of games, a thrilling series between Pakistan and South Africa under way, and the World Cup just around the corner, it felt like some of the controversies of last year, such as drugs bans and then first forfeiture of a game of cricket in 129 years had been conveniently forgotten, had been rightly swept under the carpet forgotten about. Well, Darrell Hair has put the kibosh on that by announcing that he’s now suing the ICC and …read more

Well, Darrell Hair for one thing. After he was spectacularly given the arse for his involvement in Ovalgate, it seems the ICC still haven’t quite figured out what to do with him, or even how to treat its members. It’s about time the ICC grew a backbone, rather than fannying around so much. If after the trial they decided that Hair wasn’t fit to do his job, they should have just sacked him, end of story. If they thought he was fit to do his job, he should be umpiring as usual, end of story. But instead, they’ve ended …read more

Won’t this thing just die? In yet another twist, that is, after the ICC announced that they’d moreorless sacked Darrel Hair, and then said he was their second-best, he’s now been voted #1 Umpire in the World by Wisden, receiving 34% of the vote ahead of Simon Taufel with 16%.
Now, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the stats have been somewhat skewed by recent events, and that no doubt cynical non-Pakistani punters will undoubtedly have voted for Hair just for the heck of it.
But whether he is the number 1 umpire in the world, or more realistically number …read more

Whilst the title of this post unfortunately forces unintentional thoughts of hairy arses, what’s more unfortunate is Darrell Hair’s removal from officiating in International matches. Well, unfortunate if you’re not Pakistani. No doubt the parties will go late in to the night in Pakistan tonight. The ICC spent 2 days discussing Hair, and finally came up with “We’ve lost confidence in him”, which in real words means “We don’t know what to do, but if we don’t do something, the brown stuff’s really going to hit the spinny-roundy thing.”
This is of course a total load of bollocks – Hair didn’t …read more

The charges of ball-tampering against Inzamam Ul Haq were today repudiated as ICC “judge” Sanjan Madugalle decided there was insufficient evidence to uphold the charge. However, he did find Inzy guilty of bringing the game into disrepute after twice refusing to bring his players out to the field. For this offence, he was banned for 4 ODI’s. It seems sense has prevailed. Or has it?

The inquiry in to the ball-tampering scandal gets underway at The Oval today, which will hopefully put this whole thing to bed. If you missed out on this whole affair then read my “as it happened” and then check out the BBC’s timeline.

Ahead of the The Ovalgate [s]Trial[/s] inquest that gets underway tomorrow, India have chipped in to muck things up a bit further, by requesting that Darrell Hair, the umpire at the center of the scandal, does not officiate at any matches in the forthcoming ICC Champions Trophy. Hair, who is already under scrutiny for offering to step down from the elite panel for a mere $0.5m and has yet to learn his fate, was confident of standing in the series. But with the general consensus being that everyone in the sub-continent flat out hates him, it was only a matter …read more

The “trial” of Inzamam Ul Haq, accused of ball-tampering and bringing the game into disrepute begins on Wednesday and will take two days. The decision, to be made by ICC Chief Referee Sanjan Madugalle, will be announced on Friday. Inzy faces forfeiture of his match fees and possibly a ban from the game.
And, in a cruel twist of fate, where will the hearing be held? The Oval, where it all kicked off. Ought to be an interesting few days.