Khizer Hayat

Khizer Hayat is a Pakistani former umpire playing first-class cricket for over a decade before taking up umpiring. Born on 5th January 1939, Hayat has officiated over 350 matches in his umpiring career between 1974 to 1997.

Early Career

Hayat played in 21 first-class matches. He played once for Punjab A cricket team fro 1956 till 1957 and wasn’t in the field or 3 years.

He then represented Pakistan Railways in January 1960, in their 1959/60 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy quarter-final match against Lahore and played twice for a combined Railways and Quetta team in January 1961.

In his first-class career, he scored 539 runs with the bat, at an average of 22.45 consisting of one century and two half-centuries. He took 15 catches and made 3 stumpings as a Wicketkeeper. He even bowled 52 deliveries without a wicket to his name.

Umpiring career

On March 1980, Hayat made his Test umpiring debut in the Australia tour of Pakistan at Lahore, along with Amanullah Khan. He became a regular in Test matches in Pakistan till his retirement.

In 1994, Hayat and Mahboob Shah were the two representatives from Pakistan to be included in the first international panel of umpires, set up by the ICC to ensure that a neutral umpire would be officiating every Test matches.

On 3rd November 1978, Hayat made his debut as an ODI umpire in the India tour of Pakistan at Sahiwal where Pakistan awarded the match to India in the 37th over of India’s innings.

Stats

Khizer Hayat umpired in a total of 34 Tests between 1980–1996, 55 ODI matches between 1978–1996, 151 First Class matches between 1974–1997 and 118 List A matches between 1978–1997.

Controversies

On 8th December 1995, Hayat was umpiring the encounter between Australia and Sri Lanka. Ricky Ponting was making his debut and was on 96 when he faced a ball which was about 15 centimeters above the stumps was given out. Hayat's umpiring partner that game Peter Parker recalled that Hayat felt devastation when he saw the decision on replay at tea break. Hayat was hurled by the Perth mob and was verbally abused throughout the match. However, the decision didn’t make a huge impact as Australia won by an innings and 36 runs.

In the same match, the match official Hayat along with Peter Parker was caught in controversy when they alleged that the Sri Lankan team had tampered with the ball. However, ICC cleared the Sri Lankans of all charges later.

Retirement

Hayet retired from officiating test matches on 21st October 1996 in the Zimbabwe tour of Pakistan which ended with the spoils being shared. On December 1996, Hayat officially umpired his final International match at the age of 56 in the ODI between Pakistan and New Zealand.

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