Hair offers to quit for $500,000, backtracks

Speed told a press conference that Hair’s letter was forwarded to Doug Cowie, the ICC’s umpire manager, and a copy made available to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

In his letter, Hair asked for “a one-off payment to compensate for the loss of future earnings and retainer payments over the next four years, which I believe would have been the best years I have to offer ICC and world umpiring.”

Speed said “this issue has been marked by a series of unfortunate and entirely avoidable over reaction” and added that Hair did not have any malicious intent during the ball-tampering episode.

“I am confident, as is David Richardson (ICC general manager-cricket), who has been intimately involved in these matters, that Darrell had no dishonest, underhand or malicious intent. He was seeking to find a solution that was in the interests of the game,” said Speed.

Speed said he thought Hair’s letter “was silly” and consulted three lawyers independently before making the contents of the letter public.

“When I received the letters, I was extremely surprised by the content, as was David. I was concerned as to how I should deal with it and in part whether I was required to disclose the contents. I then consulted three lawyers. They were consulted independently and didn’t know I had consulted other lawyers,” he said.

However, ICC President Percy Sonn admitted that the ICC had made Hair’s position “more difficult” releasing his letter. “I said to Darrell today that while this is a serious issue, there are issues in relation to his contract and to the ICC umpires’ Code of Conduct. I said to him he’s not sacked, he’s not suspended and he has not been charged. We are in a very early stage,” he said.

Sonn said he was aware of the precarious situation Hair found himself in. “We realise this makes Hair’s situation very sensitive. We have made available to him security advice, counselling and media management to assist him,” he said.

H S RAO