Ranking 5 worst umpires in cricket history
Few umpires have made habitual howlers or made dubious calls during their career.
2. Darrell Hair
Controversy’s favourite child, Australia’s Darrel Hair had a thing for raking up controversial thanks to his dubious calls, ever since he made his umpiring debut in 1991, especially against Asian countries.
Hair was the one who infamously no-balled spin wizard Muthiah Muralitharan a ridiculous seven times for alleged chucking, all within a space of three overs, which was enough for the Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga to leave the field along with his team in disgust.
Hair, who termed Murali’s action as “diabolical”, did not even follow the ICC rules which clearly state that an umpire must report a suspect action of a bowler to the match-referee rather than calling it on the field, something which Hair did.
Almost ten years later, Hair was it again. This time it was Inzamam-Ul-Haq and his Pakistan side who were at the receiving end of Hair’s ire when he and fellow Umpire Billy Doctrove charge the Pakistan team of ball-tampering during the Oval Test, and subsequently awarding England five penalty runs before asking for a change of ball.
Pakistan team didn’t take the field after the tea interval before eventually forfeiting the game, making it the first instance of a game being awarded to a side in such manner.
Hair was subsequently removed from the ICC Test panel of Elite Umpires but was restored two years later after dropping the racial discrimination suit against the ICC
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