Umpires

The Marylebone Cricket Club would have you believe that they are a family of cricketers who trace their collective genealogy back to before the days the game was played on grass by gentlemen, hence the name “Lords” for their ancestral home. Far from it. For those who bemoan the current plight of cricket with it’s betting, professionalism, marketing and match fixing, you will be comforted to know that the genus of the MCC and Lords was in gambling and the desire of the English nobility to do their scandalous business out of the eyes of the prying public. Go to the MCC website and click on to History and there it is for the likes of cricketing boards of inquiry, police forces, the News Of The World, Mesar’s Malik, Cronje, may he rest in peace, and the whole world to see; “Like shooting and fox hunting, cricket was considered a manly sport for the elite, with plenty of gambling opportunities to boot. Around 20,000 pounds was bet on a series of games between Old Etonians and England back in 1751. As the population of London grew, so did the nobility’s impatience with the crowds that gathered to watch them play. In pursuit of exclusivity, they therefore approached Thomas Lord, …and asked him to set up a private ground with their backing.” The MCC is older than an anachronism and some would say colour blind as evidenced by their choice of family colours, scrambled eggs and ketchup; I suspect gender blind as well, why they refused to recognize the existence of woman until 1998, when as the MCC information package trumpets: “The superb new Grand Stand was opened to great acclaim in 1998-when Members also took the decisive move to allow woman to apply for membership of the Club” My first recollection of the MCC is sitting by my grandfather’s side and listening to the BBC World Service. For 5 minutes here and 10 minutes there, I was transported to Lords or some other cricket venue to listen to the MCC versus Australia or the West Indies. Australia was always Australia, the West Indies the West Indies, but England was always the MCC. Those recollections have stayed with me to the present. When we went to build a radio link for the cricket club webpage there was only one choice, the BBC World Service. I do not know why, but I have comfort in those acronyms, the BBC and the MCC. Today I went searching for the MCC on the Internet. I tried lords.org and lords.com without success. I tried mcc.org and mcc.com upper and lower case without success, only to be disappointed to find what I was searching for at ecb.co.uk, which is “powered” by the Microsoft of cricket, cricinfo. I genuinely hope the name the Marylebone Cricket Club does not disappear from the cricket radar screen to become associated wit a brand of sports apparel marketed over the net, but I fear it and your sponsors may drive you to it.

Cricinfo.com - Oct. 03, 2007

"Darrell Hair was branded a mudslinger who tried to blackmail the ICC into receiving a financial settlement, a London tribunal heard today.

Hair, the Australian umpire, is suing his employers, the ICC, for racial discrimination following the Oval Test against Pakistan in 2006. He claims that his colleague in the Test, Billy Doctrove, was treated differently by the ICC because of the colour of his skin."

Our Response:

It is useful to remember that Darrel Hair is a lawyer by training. Hair is suing his employer, the ICC, for constructive dismissal the result of discriminatory employment practices. The employer’s defense to the Hair claims will be that Mr. Hair was relocated or demoted for cause. The cause will be difficult to defend as what is indefensible is Hair’s zealotry. We refer to an article titled Moral Crusaders As A Menace In Cricket” by Michael Roberts, (Link to Book reviews, Michael Roberts) where he concludes,
           
“The tunnel vision of moral crusaders of the type exemplified by Darrel Hair must not be allowed to gain strength. They are people who should be weeded out of the game. Their narrowness and rigidity make them killers of cricket.”
                       
On cross examination by counsel Hair was asked about the use of the
word “diabolical” in describing the Sri Lanka bowler Murali’s action. This was a question to an active umpire about an active player. Hair responded that he was merely enforcing the laws of the game at the time. What Hair fails to mention and the Roberts article points to, is how the no balling of Murali from the non-striker end was in defiance of cricket convention to that date and the rule subsequently changed to accommodate Hair’s interpretation of the rule.

Zealot umpires bringing an action against their oligopoly employer. What a delightful combination. We suggest that if Mr. Hair wants to wipe the slate clean and perform penance for his transgressions in the name and application of the “spirit” of the laws of cricket that he pledge his match fee from this case to Murali’s Charity in Sri Lanka, which by all accounts is well run and perform a valuable community service. Next Mr. Hair go out and perform an honest days labour for an honest days pay and stop feeding from the ICC trough.

Update: October 7th, 2007 Hair withdraws his claim against ICC.