by HAYDN GILL

A BALL-TAMPERING CHARGE against England prompted an abrupt halt to John Holder's promising international umpiring career 18 years ago.

The Barbadian-born English official has no doubt that his reporting a ball-tampering incident in the 1991 Test match between West Indies and England at the Oval in London led to his ten-year absence from the highest level of the game.

In a wide-ranging interview with the SUNDAY SUN, Holder, one of the first neutral appointees, revealed that a month after the Test match which England won to level the series, he received correspondence from authorities informing him that he would not be part of the Test panel of umpires the following season.

"In my match report, in the necessary column, I stated that one of the England players had tampered with the ball. I have no doubt that is why I was dropped from the Test panel. I embarrassed the England captain," Holder said.

"In cricket, there is still a lot of political correctness. Things happen and they have to be brushed under the carpet because they are not seen to be good for the image of the game even though what happened was illegal."

The 64-year-old Holder, who has just retired as a first-class umpire after 27 years and was last year appointed as the International Cricket Council (ICC) regional performance manager for Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas, is in Barbados for the launch of a book on Wednesday.

In recalling the 1991 ball-tampering event, Holder said the body language of an England fielder who had the ball suggested there was something untoward happening.

On inspecting the ball, he discovered about a dozen scratch marks and he showed it to his umpiring colleague who he said also believed the ball was tampered with.

"I called the England captain Graham Gooch and I showed him the ball. I said 'Skipper, one of your players is doing this. This is illegal and it must stop right now'. He couldn't say a word. The ball was there in front of him with the scratch marks on it," Holder said.

The ball was checked often for the remainder of the match and there were no further problems.

While Holder felt he had performed outstandingly in the Test, he was informed a month later that he was dropped from the Test panel. His only other Test appearance came ten years later when he stood in the 2001 Test match between England and Australia at Lord's where he reported that he got positive feedback from rival captains Alec Stewart and Steve Waugh.

For Holder, it was somewhat of a disappointment that he did not stand in more than 11 Tests and19 One-Day Internationals.

"I got penalised for doing my job properly. For ten years I didn't umpire a Test match," he said.

"There is no point in crying over spilt milk. I've had a good career. I've had a very enjoyable career. What was satisfying for me coming to the end of my career during this last season was that players and spectators said to me, 'you'll be missed, you've been a credit to the game'.

"Whatever happened in 1991, happened. I think I should have umpired another 50 Test matches, but it didn't happen. Life goes on."

Holder, who attended Combermere and lived in St Judes, St George, before moving to England in 1964 at the age of 19, became a first-class umpire in 1983, 11 years after his professional career as a player ended.

He officiated in his first Test in 1988 and the following year he joined fellow Englishman John Hampshire to stand in a four-Test series between Pakistan and India in which the pair were among the first neutral appointments.

WEDNESDAY: John Holder's recommendations to the WICB to improve umpiring standards in the Caribbean.