How good - or bad - an umpire is Darryl Hair?

[Lillian Thomson]

He was the first man to not call for an action replay of a Run Out which subsequently proved to be out - in a Test involving the West Indies who's players who were not on the field all appeared on the balcony and signalled "Out".
He refuses to accept that Murali's action is legal and is largely responsible for the fact that the Australian public might not see the world's greatest ever spinner in their country.
During an England tour of the West Indies he suddenly fired out Jimmy Adams and Curtley Ambrose when the left handed West Indian batsman were constantly kicking the ball away outside their off-stump. He gave those two out several feet outside the line and both had taken a huge stride, it's true they weren't playing a stroke, but both sides had been doing the same all series and there was no way he could be sure the ball was going to hit the stumps. The commentators said he just got fed up with the constant padding up and decided to give them out.
In this match he made the Inzy run out error by wrongly referring it and the first warning to the batsman for running on the wicket was nonsense.

I how he rates among the players?

[Dasa]

I've heard Darryl Hair described as one of the best umpires, and that is IMO far off the mark. He is one of the poorer international umpires around, and has a tendency to get 'fed up' as you've said and make rash decisions.

[FaaipDeOiad]

I'd say for general decision making he is well above par. He does however have a tendancy to impose his rather strong personality on proceedings, by making calls that few others would, as in the examples you have given. To suggest he is solely responsible for Murali not touring is well off the mark in my opinon, he was simply caught out because he was willing to make a call that few others were. Whether or not you agree with him, the call he made was quite a fair one under the rules at the time, and he cannot be blamed either way.

The Inzy decision was a blunder, but it was a blunder by all the umpires, including the TV umpire, and not by Hair alone.

I think generally speaking he is a good umpire though, and definately worthy of a place on the elite panel.

[Top_Cat]

I've seen him do plenty of stinkers so my opinion isn't high. It's not a recent thing, either; he was a big part of why Australia won the Adelaide Test against South Africa in 1994 when, in reality, they should have lost the series.

[Jono]

Never been a fan of his.

[Scaly piscine]

Hair made a very good decision (according to reports) today in calling a dead ball when England's current cheating opposition (when it's just one cheat, fine, but there are 3-4 minimum in that team so I'm being consistent with the CDMs being cheats) ran on the danger area when taking a run.

I think most other umpires would have let them get away with it.

[BoyBrumby]

Warning Butt for running on the pitch was vaguely surreal. To me (and admittedly it was v early) it looked like Salman made every effort to get off the "danger" area.

He does seem a man of strong convictions & is prepared to give decisions others wouldn't. I think I recall Ash Giles being changed to his end when Chanderpaul was playing with his bat tucked behing his pad on the Windies tour in 2004. The other ump (Taufel from memory) was having none of the numerous LBW shouts, but Hair gave the first one from his end.

I will say you often notice him more than other umps (that's not a fat joke, btw!) which is often a bad thing for an ump.

[SJS]

A good umpire must be firm both in perception and in actual fact but firmness (or much stronger forms of the same) do not alone make a good umpire.

He reminds me a lot of Bishen Bedi in his avataar as cricket expert and commentator. Bedi thinks being blunt and forthright is a virtue (so far so good) and then carries it to the extremes of being downright rude, scandalous in his comments and most off-handed in his remarks on the game, the players and everyone else. Bedi sees himself as the epitome of a straight talker but ends up being one of the most disliked past Indian captains.

Hair seems to think firmness means treating players like the virmin , which he probably thinks they are. I wonder what he has against them. Did he fail to make it as a cricketer and now wants to take it out on all those that did.

Giving decisions on appeals by bowlers (and God knows every umpire gives bad ones as well as good ones) is not all that an umpire does. Hair does all the other things pretty badly as far as treatment of his fellow cricket professionals is concerned and no one who is a good professional himself will do that.

[Pratters]

Hair - among the poorer umpires I have seen in international cricket.

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

At the end of the day, he's better than Rudi Koertzen.

[Fusion]

Bob Woolmer on his website tried to stay diplomatic but admitted that Hair has been harsh against Pakistan and when a poster railed against him, Bob replied simply "good points". If you have read Woolmer's responses vis a vis umpiring in the past, you know that he is not one to blame umpires. He firmly believes that umpires are human and can make mistakes. For Woolmer to be (apparently) dissatisfied with Hair, says a lot in my opionion.

[I-I011YVV00I>]

he's obviously one of those types who like the limelight. I think he's bias against the Asian nations. To be fair his decisons in the game haven't been too bad, it was Taufell who made todays blunder with a pretty poor LBW decision against Pak.

[Armadillo]

He seems to like making decisions and being in the game. He warned Kaneria twice for running on the pitch (maybe justified) and he signalled the dead ball which could cost Pk the game. Apparently he gets fed up easily too, the classic sign of impatience, well not really but you see what I mean.

[Tom Halsey]

Hair always comes across to me as rather officious, interupts too much over petty things.

As such, even if he did get every LBW right, every caught behind right (which he doesn't) I wouldn't like him very much.

[age_master]

hes a pretty good umpire, makes plenty of mistakes but there are others that make more.