Tony Cozier steps in to the fray

With the lines of engagement drawn in the sand and the supporters of Hair on one side and the antis on the other it's interesting to note that those supporting Hair are mainly Aussies and ex-umpires, club cricketers of various shapes and sizes whilst the antis appear to be made up mainly of wimpish ex-pro cricketers, cricketing journalists who are ex-cricketers (can they all be wimps?)and 50m Pakistanis. Obviously there are millions of others who have a say but their positions in all of this are difficult if not impossible to ascertain as the avalanche of opinion seems to be attacking Hair. Mark Nicholas's Daily Telegraph article published on Saturday springs to mind.

Now get this! The well respected West Indies commentator Tony Cozier has stepped in to the fray with his SPECIAL TAKE on the Hair saga and despite being vociferous in his opinion that the row could have been avoided if bad Mr Hair had been nice to Inzie and his fellow cricketers he again has confirmed that Hair cannot carry on as an umpire in 1st Class cricket. This seems to be the universal running theme amongst all the UK journalists and tv commentators. Lemmings I say! So poor old Mr Hair is being ridiculed because he did his job (properly in my estimate) by penalising Pakistan 5 runs, a law by the way designed to take the sting out of the tail of any bowler mixed up in a verbal accusation of tampering. Let's imagine that the 5 run penalty law wasn't there then and Mr Hair, or any umpire anywhere in cricket for that matter, had suspected a bowler, or fielders of ball tampering. What was he/they to do? Perhaps verbally accuse players of CHEATING. Well, in most places in the sub-continent a riot would have taken place. No this did NOT happen like this because the 5 run penalty law or ruling is designed to take the sting out of the sticky issue because it DOES NOT accuse anybody of CHEATING. That's the whole point which not a single journalist appears to have picked up.

Now to Cozier's alarming observation. As you know he blames Mr Hair for his lack of "flexibility" as he puts it and then discusses to whoever read his article about the 2 occasions, yes twice chaps, when Billy Doctrove penalised 2 West Indies teams on seperate occasions. Incredible this story...quite incredible! Apparently it's only EVER happened twice before in the history of West Indies cricket and our Billy was involved on both occasions. One was a 1995 game involving Barbados U-19 the last a 2004 Carib Cup game involving Barbados again.

Now don't you think that this might take the heat off Hair...not a bit of it because Mr Speed and the ICC Muppet Crew have already stamped their feet and thrown the baby out of the pram.

Now why did it take Tony Cozier till yesterday to report this to the world press. Perhaps Tony you too were fearful that your cushy seat in the tv/radio studio, Lords press centre might be taken by someone else.....

I am beginning to think that cricketing journalists should be forced to wear LIVER coloured blazers from now on.