Behind the face of cricket umpires

I have to hand it over to our friend Jonathan for this excellent post on the much debated issues related to umpires in cricket. You can read about it here. Don't forget to also see part 1 too. Jonathan's take on the increasing emphasis of specific umpires on some incidents taking the brunt of all the scrutiny by the fans and the media is well put out and the case of the extent of the workload, umpires like Asad Rauf and Simon Taufel have to endure, is an eye opener, as hardly any have ...

Inside Aleem Dar

A curious incident happened during the last test match which got me thinking rather weirdly. The incident in question was when Cameron White was caught red-handed tampering the ball. A small piece of leather was protruding and he apparently just plucked it out. The umpire Aleem Dar had caught him in the act, so did the cameras and had a prolonged conversation with Ricky Ponting. And then nothing happened... No action was taken... Let off lightly. Ball tampering of any nature is a serious c...

ICC hits a new low… Hair reinstated

In one of the most disgusting moves forced by the political arm-twisting of Cricket Australia, the ICC has reinstated Darrell Hair back into the elite panel. What is more puzzling is that the ICC has declared that Hair would not officiate in any of the Pakistan team matches, in a view to work some sort of shady compromise, which is now going to further break the rather fragile excuse of a system which is currently in place. Hair had penalized the Pakistan team for ball tampering, which led to...