Tags:
Journalism of Courage
SYDNEY, DEC 4: Rude behaviour by Australian umpire Darrell Hair slighting Indians and Pakistanis provoked a strong reaction from Indian coach Kapil Dev here today. After a couple of dubious decisions on the third day of the tourists match against New South Wales, Hair rudely remarked to an appealing stand-in skipper Saurav Ganguly, "Pakistanis did this and now you are doing it".
Taking umbrage at this kind of sweeping remark, Kapil Dev said "I am not bothered about good umpiring or bad umpiring but no umpire is supposed to say anything like this. We all make mistakes. Mistakes will be made. Nothing wrong in it. But, saying something like this, I felt was bad. When I talked to Ganguly, I felt really bad. This is not the way I expected a senior umpire to react". Kapil Dev, however, said he was not going to file any complaint. "We have come here to play cricket and not to report and complain", he added. Umpire Hair was unavailable for comment as he is bound by contract not to react in press.
Sources said Hair had gone up to Ganguly and told him "You people are not allowed to look at the replay. It is taken as a dissent by ICC. We had told the Pakistanis the same thing and we are now telling you, Indians, the same thing".
The protest arose first when NSW opener Greg Hayne was given not out by Hair while padding up to Venkatesh Prasad and then when his partner Simon Taufel ruled nightwatchman Gavin Robertson not out when the batsman had clearly edged the ball via his pads to VVS Laxman at silly mid-off.
Hair was also involved in a verbal duel with Ajit Agarkar at mid-off after the fielder appeared cheesed off by the umpire negating a leg before appeal by Prasad against Hayne. A similar appeal against Hrishikesh Kanitkar by Don Nash had met with Hair’s approval then. Hair then walked over to Agarkar and spoke to him gesturing with his hands. Ganguly ran from the slips and intervened as Hair was walking back to take his position at the bowler’s end.
By the looks of it, Hair was really going hard on Agarkar. Instead of walking to the fielder, the right thing for Hair to do should have been to call up the captain, in this case Ganguly, and speak to him about the player’s `misconduct’.
Nothing of this kind happened. Instead, Hair went to Agarkar and towered over him, gesticulating strongly. If the idea of the establishment is to stop ugly scenes happening in the middle, it did not make for any pleasant viewing either.
Hair has been in the centre of controversy regarding other Asian teams as well. He was the one who no-balled Muttiah Muralitharan when the off-spinner toured with the Sri Lankan team in 1995. It was a major row then. Hair then made strong comments against the Sri Lankans in his biography because of which he was censured by the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) and asked to stand down from the three-Test series against the Sri Lankans.
There apparently is an ICC ruling which asks telecasting network to stop showing replays on the ground more than once. Today, the replay was shown on the giant screen three times.
This was not the only major issue of the day. Apparently, some Indians were not happy with the bowling action of a NSW bowler, reportedly pace bowler Brett Lee. A pointed question was put to Kapil whether his team had asked for action replays of bowling action of a particular NSW bowler. Kapil denied it.
“No we have not. But you have been seeing it. You are reporters. You know everything,” said the world’s highest Test wicket-taker.
