BoyBrumby
Englishman
As I said in my first post in this thread, I'm not a fan of Hair. He's (IMHO) a grandstanding maroon with a martyr complex (which means he's probably secretly delighted with the outcome, think of all that lovely advance on his next autobiography), but that doesn't necessarily mean he was wrong. He was wrong to make such a show of it & possibly ill-advised to even make the penalty (but, again, I'm only saying that because I knew what the reaction would be, Hair's course of action at least has a strange kind of integrity), but his removal means it's more-or-less impossible for any standing umpire to make that call.adharcric said:Nobody cares about the five runs. A ball-tampering or chucking call is a serious blight on a cricketer's integrity; you can't just ignore "extra-cricketing concerns" and pretend like cricket is a robotic sport in which common sense means nothing.
Besides, I'm not supporting the ICC's reasoning for sacking Hair, whatever it was. IMO he shouldn't be umpiring in the elite panel and now he isn't so I support the decision.
In other words, I'm not suggesting that Hair should've been sacked simply because he botched a ball-tampering call once. In fact, he probably shouldn't have.
It's the repeated incidents and his general attitude on the field that make him a poor umpire. These black ribbon folks should realize that he's not worth their time.
Let's suppose an umpire sees a fielder doing what he thinks might be ball-tampering; how can he call it now? He would have no idea if the cameras will have picked it up or not. What does he do? Call him on it & run the risk of losing his job? Ask the third ump to check footage? Ignore it? We're stuck with another law of the game that, to all intents and purposes, cannot be enforced in any meaningful way.
I don't think the umpires are wearing the ribbons to back Hair per se (although obviously there's some implied support for a brother umpire), rather the fact that their standing as the ultimate arbitors of the game has been further eroded.