Friday, August 25, 2006

The Score - $100,000 a run

Yes. You read that right.

Umpire Hair penalised the Pakis 5 penalty runs for alleged ball tampering.

Now, since he did that, he has offered to quit the panel of Elite Umpires just as long as he's paid $500,000.

Not bad, Mr. Hair. Not bad at all.

Riggs

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Splitting Hairs.

Sydney: Umpire Darrell Hair has been hailed a hero in Australia for his role in the ball tampering row which led to Pakistan forfeiting the fourth Test against England.
Yeah Right. Bloody Convicts!

Robert Craddock, writing for the Daily Telegraph, said "Darrell Hair is prepared to poke his nose into grubby corners of the cricket world where most of his fellow umpires refuse to go"
Where is Mr. Robert bloody Craddock when there's a non Asian team sledging its poorer Asian opponents? Or when Michael Slater has a go at Rahul Dravid and umpire Venkatraghavan and gets away scot free. Where Brian Lara acts like a petulant child with a Pakistani umpire? What's good for the goose, obviously isn't good for the gander, what? Ol' Ricky P coming out to bat with an aluminium bat isn't exactly a 'grubby' corner now, is it?

"If there were a few more Hairs available to stand in matches around the world then cricket would be in less of a mess than it is right now," Patrick Smith wrote in The Australian.
Mr. Patrick Smith - How about if there were a few less Aussies playing cricket around the world, then cricket wouldn't be the sort of ugly-big-bully playground it is right now? Eh?

Hair should be considered a hero for his courage, despite being subjected to death threats in the past.
He should be glad the Ayatollah doesn't watch cricket.

Shaharyar Khan, the Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), said the board would not accept Australian umpire Darrell Hair for any matches."We are going to make it clear to the International Cricket Council (ICC) that we are not going to play under the supervision of Hair in any future matches."
Go Paki Go Paki Go!! No Hair. No Hair.

Shane Warne has leapt to the defence of umpire and fellow Australian Darrell Hair, saying the man at the centre of the ball-tampering row was not racially motivated and was doing what he thought was right. "He's not racist, he just tries to do the best job he can," the leg-spinner told Australian Associated Press. "The times I've had him he's been fine."
Will someone please tell Warnie to shut up, eat his double-cheese burger with beans, take his diuretic, serve his 12 month ban and REALISE his name is NOT Muralitharan, he is NOT a darkie and that Yes, the times he has had with Hair are fine because they both come from the same country. I think Leg Spinners should be seen, not heard.

AND, from Pakistan ...

The cartoon in a Pakistani Islamist newspaper on Wednesday has Australian umpire Darrell Hair dressed in a Nato uniform growling: "I am also waging a war against terrorism."

A frontpage headline in The News reads: "When we are not terrorists, we are cheats."

The ICC and Hair should realise cricket is no longer just a sport or we would not have England refusing to tour Zimbabwe on political grounds or South Africa returning from Sri Lanka due to security concerns," former Pakistan captain Rashid Latif said.

AND, from around the world :-


Mike Marqusee, The Guardian
Umpire Darrell Hair did not accuse the Pakistanis of cheating; he declared, publicly, without warning, without consultation, and apparently without evidence, that they were cheating, and unilaterally implemented the statutory punishment for the offence - awarding five penalty runs to England and changing the ball, which had allegedly been tampered with.

Peter Roebuck, Sydney Morning Herald
Hair should have been sacked years ago because he is an erratic and headstrong umpire whose time has passed. His conduct at The Oval was the latest episode in a notably contentious career. Once again he chose the path of confrontation, throwing his weight around, asserting his authority without much thought about the consequences. Certainly, he did not hesitate to accuse a touring team of cheating. He is not so much a bull in a china shop as a dinosaur in a delicatessen.

Simon Barnes, commented in The Times:
“Sky, not short of cameras or curiosity, was unable to find any footage of a guilty player doing some sneaky thing to the ball. All we have, then, is Hair’s judgment: Hair’s punishment: Hair’s abdication: Hair’s creation of one the great periodic scandals in cricket history. All I can say is that he’d bloody well better be bloody well sure that he was bloody well right.”

John Ethridge of The Sun, a paper that hasn’t been backwards in condemning Pakistan in the past, wrote:
“An 18-stone Aussie called Darrell Hair trampled his feet all over the name of cricket with an astonishing display of pig-headedness. Umpire Hair’s refusal to see sense or abandon his misguided pride meant England became the first team in history to win a Test match by forfeit. Hair was the central figure in a bewildering day of controversy, anger, stubbornness and ultimately disgrace. Everybody else — the players, the Boards, the match referee and most of all the 12,000 spectators with tickets for today — wanted the Fourth Test to be completed. But Hair plonked his considerable bulk in the way as a row over ball-tampering escalated into a Test match being curtailed a day and a session early.”

So much for the Aussies and Darrel bloody Hair. This cut-paste is a tough job. On Tv, I saw Paki protesters with a banner that spelt his name 'Darril Heir', if someone finds a pic of that, please let me know.

Riggs

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A bad Hair day!

I have watched cricket over the years. While great batsmen, some bowlers and some fielders had us glued to our tellies, there have always been some umpires who have added their own brand of fun to the game. Some of our fondest memories have to do with umpires.

Can you forget Ambrose, trying to field the ball, running into Dickie Bird? Poor Dickie was all over the place and literally had to hold on to Curtley to stay upright. He then proceeded to walk around like a stunned man. Play acting at it's best. The players loved it and more importantly, the crowds loved it.

Shep and his triple Nelson phobia. He hopped around on one foot everytime Nelson appeared on the scoreboard, which again, became as famous as Sachin's crotch-box fidget and Srikkanth's sniffling! Shep's signalling of four to the scorers, the hand waving slow signal is how cricket fans the world over signal four.

Billy Bowden and his dancing queen antics were almost as huge a hit as some of Chris Cairns sixes. He bought elements of baseball, basketball and american football signals into cricket, along with being fleet of foot, signalling fours and sixes to the beat of those DJs blaring music on the Kiwi grounds.

And then.... there's Darrel Hair. Grumpy. Boring. Unless you're an Asian cricketer. That's when you're on your toes. You never know when you're going to get shafted. Whenever there's been a hard decision and some kind of controversy with Hair, you can be rest assured its never with an Aussie, Kiwi or Pom! It's Sri Lanka. Pakistan. Zimbabwe. All that's missing is a KKK hood and Hair's in business.

It boggles the mind that 26 Tv cameras (by what I think are the best production team in the world) could not capture what Hair's eagle-eyes have. The ball wasn't allowed to be inspected by Inzy until Inzy demanded his rights. It all reeks of bollocks, if you ask me. Prez Perv has jumped into the fray and added his two-bits. I do hope the ICC wakes up and smells chai, carrying this on any further will release a tsunami of Asian hate all over the gentleman's game.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Prof. Deano, No No - No No



Racism and religous stereotyping raised its ugly head when Aussie ex-test cricketer now commentator Dean Jones was heard on air, calling a South African player a terrorist.



When Hashim Amla, who is a devout Muslim, took the catch to dismiss Kumar Sangakkara, Jones was heard to say "the terrorist has got another wicket". He has since been given the boot by his 'terrorist employer' Ten Sports, who, ironically, is also headed by 'terrorists'.

A contrite Jones later said - "I'm gone, I'm on the 1 a.m. flight. It was a silly and completely insensitive thing to say and, obviously, it was never supposed to be heard over the air. I am truly sorry to have caused offence to anybody and the last thing I intended was to be disrespectful.

"Everyone needs to get away from perpetuating the myth, publicly and privately, that beards associated with the Muslim faith are somehow suspicious, and I intend to do exactly that. The irony is that I am great friends with most of the Pakistan team and they are all Muslims.

"I have no end of respect for the Muslim faith - that's why I'm so sorry at making such a stupid comment," he said. "It does not represent who I am, how I think or what I believe. I will be the first person to apologise to Hashim as soon as I get the chance, and I will assure him that prejudice against anybody, on any basis, is unacceptable and not something I will ever condone."


Yeah. Right.

Just one thought though. Ten Sports IS run by the Arabs. Would he still have got the sack if he had said this on Star or ESPN? Or Channel 9? Or BBC Sports? Point to ponder, really.

Riggs

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Bengali Rabbits and Kannad Secrets

Well, I'm having a stupendously terrible week. Absolutely no sleep, dead-boring work, all sorts of human conflict, several screw-ups AND I've been subjected to an overdose of rapid, mumbaiyya hindi conversation at work. And my spoken Hindi wasn't too good to begin with. Chop chop. This post is not about my life situation (although after such a prolonged absence, it seems natural to subject the kind Junta to inane samachar). I hear the alleged 'bachcha', is, to quote the good people at CricInfo"in the eye of another potential storm. Speculation is rife about his possible rehabilitation, even though partial, in the form of a place among the 30 probables for the Champions Trophy". Now this may all be what is widely known in Republican circles as "posturing and hence, facilitating". But what this occasionally-practising writer is concerned about is the the repercussions of the said possibility for Captain My-City-Is-so-Cool-it-can-host-Secret-Training-Camps.

Now this said city is rather cool( Please to be referring Riggs' travel accounts in this and associated blogs). And we do have our share of savvy entrepreneurs. But imagine a "secret" training camp conducted at an "undisclosed" location in shocking proximity to a high society spa that loves going to the press. I mean, like, how cool is that, obviously.

Anyhoo, just checking in as a warm-up exercise in prepartion to be star witness to the imminent chaos. If Mr Ganguly pulls a white rabbit, will Mr Bengaluru pull a HDK?

Bart
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