Review system sapping umpire confidence – Hair

Darrell Hair

SYDNEY,  (Reuters) – Cricket’s decision referral  system is sapping the confidence of match officials and should  be scrapped, according to former Australian test umpire Darrell  Hair.
The system, where decisions can be referred to an official  who reviews the television pictures before passing his verdict  on to the umpires, is making its World Cup debut in India, Sri  Lanka and Bangladesh.
The controversial Hair, once described by former Pakistan  captain Imran Khan as an “umpiring fundamentalist”, said the  system was also encouraging youngsters playing junior cricket to  question the decisions of umpires.

Darrell Hair
Darrell Hair

“I cannot help wondering how much of a confidence dent will  be left on some of our ICC umpires when they begin to  continually have decisions overturned,” he wrote in the journal  of the New South Wales Cricket Umpires and Scorers Association.
“During the Ashes series we even saw the farcical situation  of umpires Billy Bowden and Aleem Dar, generally acknowledged as  two of the best in the game, doubting their ability to correctly  call a no-ball.
“If the game is going to sap the confidence of umpires to  that extent, where they cannot trust their own calls to be made  on basic bread-and-butter decisions, then the system has failed  them.”
Hair said the governing International Cricket Council (ICC)  should focus on working with umpires to ensure their decisions  were correct on the majority of occasions.
“A review system by its very nature will uncover mistakes  but management of why these mistakes occur in the first place  should be the priority,” he added.
“ICC should stop the rot and decay that will eat away at the  core of the spirit of cricket — respect the role of the umpires  and the games traditional values. Back the umpires and ditch the  decision review system — it’s just not worth it.”
Hair, who umpired 78 tests between 1992 and 2008, was  temporarily banned from officiating in 2006 after Pakistan  became the first country to forfeit a match in more than a  century of test cricket because of one of his decisions.