BY TONY COZIER

FROM THE TIME Darrel Hair no-balled Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing in the Melbourne Test in 1995, first from square-leg and then, pointedly, when the Sri Lankan off-spinner was switched from the bowler's end, the International Cricket Council (ICC) knew it had a problem with the intransigent Australian umpire and what it would later describe as "an emotive issue".

Eleven years on, the "emotive issue" is no longer law 24.3 ("definition of a fair delivery – the arm"), but 42.3 ("the match ball – changing its condition").

The turmoil that has followed his decision, taken in concert with his fellow umpire Billy Doctrove, to find Pakistan guilty under the latter law in the last Test against England at the Oval last Sunday, has been even more passionate than his earlier intervention.

The reason is clear. "Throwing" and ball tampering are seen as the most cynical forms of cheating in the game, the most damning accusation in sport.

They have been part of cricket for almost as long as the game has been played, but they carry a stigma widely taken as a slight to a nation, even a race.

Bizarre offer

It is pertinent that Hair, a stickler for the letter, rather than the spirit, of the laws, has been widely portrayed as a white Australian acting only against Asian teams and players.

The potential for the flashpoint that was reached at the Oval last Sunday, and will now surely lead to the end of Hair's career following his bizarre resignation offer, was implicitly recognised by the ICC through its actions after Hair called Muralitharan.

Hair was not alone in considering Muralitheran's bent-elbowed delivery illegal. It has caused widespread comment throughout the off-spinner's phenomenal career.

Yet Hair and, later, another Australian, Ross Emerson, were the only ones who adhered to the letter of the law and no-balled him.

Noting the shock and indignation of the Sri Lankans at this slight on their cricketing hero, the game's governing body diplomatically withdrew Hair from any matches involving Sri Lanka for eight years, not assigning him to stand in another of their Tests until their tour of the Caribbean in 2003.

By then, it felt safe from a repetition of such damaging discord by modifying the law on throwing. Now umpires, effectively, could no longer make the call on the field as they saw it – and as Hair had done in Melbourne – but had to report their suspicions to the match referee who would pass them on to a bowling review group of eminent individuals for assessment.

To make the task even easier for umpires – and for bowlers – the process was further modified in March, 2005, when bowlers were given a new limit of 15 degrees of permissible straightening of the elbow on delivery.

Those who were still deemed suspicious and reported as such had their actions analysed in a special laboratory by a panel of leading bio-mechanical experts.

It was impossible for any country then to scream discrimination and dishonour if one of their bowlers was charged and sent for remedial work. Pakistan have had more in this category than anyone without causing any song and dance.

Yet, even with such adjustments, the ICC has tended to keep Hair and Sri Lanka apart.

Since 2003, he has only been assigned four Tests with Sri Lanka (two when Muralitheran was absent). And he has never stood in either a Test or a One-Day International in Sri Lanka itself. Not one. Clearly, someone at the ICC was conscious of the potential repercussions.

Yet they failed to foresee the warning lights flashing as far as ball tampering, another "emotive issue", was concerned. Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, acknowledged last week that Pakistan had expressed their concerns over Hair verbally but had only put them in writing after the Oval Test, "even though they have previously been invited to do so".

"However, it remains the role of the ICC and not our members to appoint umpires to Tests and One-Day Internationals," he added.

It is a principle that clearly did not apply to Hair and Sri Lanka for eight years after the Muralitheran incident. Sunday's row would certainly not have erupted had the ICC taken the same option in relation to Pakistan's reservations about Hair.

Of course, the appointment of umpires does remain the role of the ICC and not its members, but occasionally a little flexibility is called for. It is a tenet that Darrel Hair did not seem to share.

*****

Doctrove and ball tampering

BILLY DOCTROVE, Darrel Hair's almost anonymous fellow umpire in ball tampering that has thrown international cricket into such chaos, is no stranger to the infringement.

The 51-year-old Dominican was also previously involved in the only two matches in West Indies cricket in which teams have been penalised for the offence.

Barbados was the team on each occasion on neither of which a guilty player was identified.

In a controversial decision, taken by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) almost a year after Doctrove and fellow umpire Rawle Greenidge changed the ball and filed their report from the match in the 1995 Under-19 Championships in Grenada, the eight points Barbados gained for first innings lead over Guyana were deducted.

It cost them a share of the championship in which they had finished level with Guyana and Jamaica.

In the 2004 Carib Cup at Kensington Oval, Doctrove and umpire Vincent Bullen of Barbados deemed the state of the ball had been altered and added five penalty runs to the Guyana second innings total. Barbados still won the match by ten wickets.

Evidence

Bullen said on the CBC TV programme, Line And Length, last Wednesday that the decision, like that in the Oval Test, had been based on circumstantial evidence.

He and Doctrove had reported their decision to match referee Hartley Reid and no further action was taken.

The circumstances surrounding the 1995 Under-19 tournament were muddled. In the relevant match, played on July 18, 19 and 20, Doctrove and Greenidge changed the ball three overs after they reported their suspicions to Barbados captain Shirley Clarke.

The WICB subsequently set up a sub-committee to investigate the issue and Barbados manager Marven Alleyne, coach William Bourne, and captain Clarke appeared before it. It was not until June 18 the following year, 11 months after the event, that the WICB reported that the sub-committee found "clear evidence of ball tampering and that the Barbados team was culpable".

It upheld the recommendation to dock Barbados the eight points they had gained for first innings lead and produced the relevant, clearly scratched ball as evidence to be photographed by the media.

Philip Nicholls, an attorney and Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) member, took up the issue, saying he was "appalled and angered by this apparent lynching by the WICB of the Barbados youth team".

"We simply wrote them a letter asking for a hearing on the matter and, to my amazement, I open the papers and see the alleged ball being displayed to all and sundry," he fumed.

"This is not how things are done. Where did the pictured ball come from and how do we know it's the same ball?

"To try and convict the Barbados cricket team by these sorts of means is tantamount to going back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition," he added.

It was the same type of resentment the Pakistanis have expressed this past week.

Tony Cozier is the leading cricket writer and broadcaster in the West Indies.