Sports - Hair gets crew cut from British press

LONDON, Aug 26, 2006 (AFP) -Revelations that umpire Darrell Hair asked cricket's governing body the ICC for a 500,000-dollar pay-off to defuse the ball-tampering row with Pakistan dominated Britain's newspapers Saturday.

The latest twist in a saga that began at The Oval last Sunday made the front pages of early editions of not only The Daily Telegraph and The Times but also The Sun tabloid and the even business daily the Financial Times.

Copies of the very e-mails in which the Australian official, 53, made the request to the ICC's umpires and referees manager, Doug Cowie, were reprinted while ex-pros and pundits gave their views.

The Sun -- whose sports coverage is normally dominated by football -- was the most vocal critic, describing the affair as: “Ransom: Biggest Scandal to Hit Cricket.”The newspaper mocked up a photograph of Hair with a wad of greenbacks in his right hand under the headline “Ransom Demand”, the “s” of “ransom” fashioned out of a dollar sign.Like most, it viewed Hair as having irreparably damaged his reputation and made it virtually inevitable that Pakistan, and their captain Inzamam-ul-Haq, would be exonerated of ball tampering and disrepute charges.

Commentator Steven Howard wrote: “They coined a new phrase last night: as mad as Darrell Hair.

“Only someone who had taken temporary leave of his senses could have imagined he could have got away with holding his employers -- the ICC -- to ransom. ”He went on: “(The) facts are that Hair has single-handedly caused more damage to cricket than anyone else in the history of the game. ”The Daily Mirror viewed Hair's correspondence as “one of professional sport's longest suicide notes”. “He is due to stand in a Second XI fixture at Chesterfield next week, but after yesterday's incredible disclosures, he will be lucky to get a white coat as a dentist's receptionist,” wrote correspondent Mike Walters.

Instead of “the way forward” -- what Hair titled his e-mails -- “in professional terms, it proved only a fast-track over the cliff-edge”, he added.

In the broadsheets, The Times' Christopher Martin-Jenkins was in a conciliatory mood, assessing that Hair's decision was “almost certainly made with honest intentions”, but acknowledging its detrimental impact. The Guardian agreed that Hair's actions appeared to have prejudiced the case against Pakistan but considered it had united cricket “as rarely before”.

After apologising to Pakistan and opening an investigation into Hair's conduction, the ICC should look at how much power umpires have on a match, the left-leaning newspaper added. “Major sports no longer consider a referee's decision to be final. Modern technology and the higher stakes involved means that the days when the umpire alone had the last word have long gone,” they said.

There was disappointment at the Daily Telegraph, who lauded Hair's decision at the Oval not to be cowed by commercial pressures to continue the Test when, under the laws, Pakistan had foreited the game by not taking the field in time. “Now we see his feet of clay,” an editorial said, adding of the e-mails:

“It still feels like a slap in the face to the very cricket-lovers whose respect he had won. It has diminished him and diminished the game.”Despite the headline -- “Hair's 30 pieces of silver small change next to 10 million pounds for putting truth on hold” -- The Independent's James Lawton proved Hair's strongest backer.

He assessed the umpire may at the very least be accused of opportunism but he was “hardly the only one with money on his mind”.

“Indeed, we can be sure celebrations within the ICC, the England and Wales Cricket Board and its Pakistan counterparts at the rescuing of the one-day series starting next week have rather more to do with the resulting income of 10 million pounds than some magical restoration of sporting values -- and relations -- out on the old green square,” he wrote.