Ranatunga says Individuals like hair are spoiling Relations between countries and teams. He also says that ICC should not be blamed for Hair's actions. He also says "ICC should take a very firm action. Hair has had enough problems in the past. The ICC had taken off Hair from their panel earlier, they should do that again. Keep him out for some time and rehabilitate him before bringing him back again."
Cut Hair off elite panel, says Ranatunga
PTI
COLOMBO, Aug 26: Sri Lanka's World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga wants Darrel Hair to be taken off Elite Panel of ICC Umpires in the wake of the revelation that the Australian had offered to quit his post in exchange of money following the ball tampering row.
Ranatunga, who had threatened to walk-out on Sri Lanka's tour of Australia in 1997-98 when Muttiah Muralitharan was for chucking in a one-day match, said "bad characters" like Hair were spoiling relations between countries by their conduct and it was time the ICC took a firm action against him.
"ICC should take a very firm action. Hair has had enough problems in the past. The ICC had taken off Hair from their panel earlier, they should do that again. Keep him out for some time and rehabilitate him before bringing him back again," he said.
Ranatunga said issues like these were souring relations between two teams.
"With issues like these, relations between two countries suffer the most. (Because of Hair's decision to call Murali) the Australian fans jeered our team when they toured Down Under last. People get angry with countries because of the conduct of some of the officials."
Taking a swipe at Hair, Ranatunga said the Aussie "might come out with a book in three months, it will sell very good."
Following the Murali chucking controversy, Hair had come out with his autobiography "Decision Maker" in 1998 in which he had termed Sri Lankan offie's action as "diabolical" and stated that he would not hesitate to call the bowler again.
Asked if Hair was biased against Asian teams, he said, "when people like Hair are there, it invariably happens that the teams from Asia are at the receiving end."
However, he did not agree with Wasim Akram's view that ICC had become a forum for white people.
"One should not put the blame on ICC. It appoints umpires and if some of the characters behave badly, you cannot really blame ICC for that."
Ranatunga also said that had he been leading the side instead of Inzamam-ul Haq at the Oval, the match would have stopped the moment Hair decided to dock his team five runs for ball-tampering.
"Inzamam is one of the nicer guys in cricket. He should have acted right at the moment when the ball was changed. He should have protested there and then, consulted the match referee and taken a decision. But maybe he wanted to keep the spirit of the game."
The former batsman also said Hair had done a grave mistake by making such a serious charge as ball tampering without any concrete evidence.
"There were 26 cameras covering the action. None of them caught any Pakistan player doing anything untoward.
"If Hair did spot anything amiss, he should have brought it to the notice of Inzamam and the Match Referee.
"It is a big accusation and should not be made on the basis of a mere suspicion."
