Hair brushed aside (3 December 1998)

3 December 1998

Hair brushed aside

Rick Eyre for CricInfo365

Darrell Hair will not umpire matches involving Sri Lanka in this season's Carlton & United One-Day Series. He elected to stand aside for those games, defusing a possible confrontation between the Australian and Sri Lankan cricket boards.

Hair announced the decision at a press conference in Melbourne this afternoon, following three weeks of controversy after details were released of the contents of his new autobiography, "Decision Maker: an Umpire's Story".

In his book, Hair gave an account of incidents during the 1995-96 Sri Lankan tour of Australia, in which he no-balled Muralitharan for throwing. He described the Sri Lankan's bowling action during one game that he had umpired as "diabolical".

Upon publication of media reports of the book, the BCCSL lodged a complaint with the ICC, requesting that Hair be charged with a breach of the ICC Code of Conduct. The ICC is yet to make a decision about this complaint.

Speaking at the press conference this afternoon, Hair acknowledged that the timing of the release of his book was inappropriate. ACB chief executive Denis Rogers, who accompanied Hair at the press conference, said that the decision was Hair's alone, and that there had been no pressure brought by the Australian Cricket Board. Rogers also said that Hair was still regarded as Australia's number one umpire.

Meanwhile, Muralitharan is still in doubt to make the Australian tour at all. He has been given until December 23 to prove his fitness following an injury suffered during the Wills International Cup in Dhaka in October. Aravinda de Silva, Upul Chandana and Nuwan Zoysa have also been given till the 23rd to prove their fitness to tour.