Loneliness of the long-distance umpire

While it seems that the world is queuing up to have a pop at Darrell Hair, Pat Gibson in The Times has highlighted that the job of being one of the ICC's elite umpires is not all that it is cracked up to be:

It sounds like a life of glamour, flying business class around the world, staying in the best hotels, watching the greatest cricketers of the day from the best vantage point, but for the members of the Emirates elite panel of umpires, it can be a lonely, stressful existence.

Gibson says that the rewards are decent – they are believed to earn between $75,000 (about £40,000) and $100,000 a year, plus a match fee of about $5,000 for Tests and $2,000 for one-day games – but on average they are abroad for up to 240 days a year.

Small wonder that three of England’s top umpires — Peter Willey, Neil Mallender and Jeremy Lloyds — have recently declined the invitation to join the elite list.

David Frith, writing in the Daily Telegraph, sympathises with the man in the middle.