The decisions of the onfield umpires are vital in deciding the outcome of a match
#4 Darrel Hair
The former Australian umpire Darrel Hair
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Ever since his umpiring debut in 1991, Darrel Hair was involved in many controversies for his dubious decisions. He was renowned for his harsh calls, especially against Asian countries.
In a Test match in Australia, Hair no-balled Muthiah Muralitharan seven times for alleged chucking in a space of three overs. Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga left the field with his team in utter disgust, though they returned after a short while.
According to ICC rules, an umpire must report a suspect action of a bowler to the match referee rather than calling it on the field which Hair did. He even termed Murali’s action as “diabolical”.
He was involved in one of the biggest ever on-field controversies, during a Test match between England and Pakistan at the Oval in 2006. On field umpires, Billy Doctrove and Darrel Hair charged the Pakistan cricket team for ball tampering and awarded England five penalty runs and also asked for a change of ball.
The infuriated Pakistan team didn’t take the field after the tea interval and the match was awarded to England after thirty minutes. It was the first ever forfeiture in a Test match since Test cricket’s inception in 1877. Hair finally retired as an international umpire in 2008.
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About the author
Arya Sekhar Chakraborty
Arya is a cricket journalist with around 8 years of experience who writes informative listicles and is in charge of text commentary at Sportskeeda. He is a graduate in Journalism, Psychology, and English, and has previously worked for websites such as CricTracker, SportzWiki, Cricket Addictor, Cricfit, OneCricket, and Cricket Exchange. His vast experience has led him to know the pulse of his readers and he cross-checks information from a number of credible sources before writing a single word for their sake.
A former Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) U14 and U16 player, Arya's tryst with cricket began after watching Sachin Tendulkar in action during his childhood. He is an ardent fan of Mumbai Indians (MI) owing to Tendulkar's initial involvement and also bleeds blue for his national team. He is an admirer of Test cricket as he feels the red-ball format teaches one about every facet of life.
Arya, who feels ODIs should not be completely replaced with T20Is owing to the former's pacing and charm, would like to go back in time to 1998 and watch the Master Blaster in action. He has experience in interviewing a few Bengali cricketers such as Kazi Junaid Saifi, Shib Shankar Pal, Sayan Ghosh and Prayas Ray Barman. He has also translated a couple of Bengali cricket books, and made Indian Premier League (IPL) pre-match videos.
He likes to spend time with his family and binge on web series during his spare time.
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