Darrell Hair gets hot under the collar
“It’s quite clear-cut. His [Haddin's] gloves were in front of the stumps and the ball hadn’t passed the line of stumps, so he’s in breach of the law and it should have just been an automatic no-ball. Of all the people on the ground, he would have been the one who was best positioned to know. I think he should have owned up to it. I saw that Ponting has gone into bat for him after the Kiwis called him [Haddin] a cheat, but I can understand why the Kiwis would be livid about it.”
“People think the square leg umpire [Bruce Oxenford] is out there for a rest, but the most important thing the square leg umpire is out there to look for are the things that happen the least and that’s hit wicket and the wicketkeeper encroaching. It should have just been called a no-ball from the square leg umpire. You can’t be stumped and you can’t be bowled off a no-ball. But it’s obvious that the ball missed the stump as well.”
Darrell, as usual, is absolutely correct. Haddin had a deadset shocker, and his being upset at Vettori for calling him a cheat is laughable.
I noticed at the end of this article that Darrell is now the “executive officer of the NSW Cricket Umpires and Scorers Association”, so it’s good to have him back home if the ICC are too easily influenced by politics to utilise their best umpire.
