March 19, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 10, 1429

DUBAI, March 18: Darrell Hair, the Australian umpire who was barred from standing in top-level cricket matches following a controversial abandoned Test between England and Pakistan, was on Tuesday reinstated as one of the game’s elite officials.

Hair has not taken charge of a Test or a major international one-day match since he and his West Indian colleague Billy Doctrove penalised Pakistan five runs for alleged ball-tampering during the fourth and final Test against England at The Oval in August 2006.

The decision infuriated the Pakistanis and their captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq, refused to play on, resulting in the match being abandoned after tea on the fourth day with England awarded the first victory by forfeit in the history of the game.

Hair, who has since been restricted to One-day Internationals involving minor nations, was cleared to return to umpiring Tests and ODIs between the leading cricket nations at a meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in

Dubai.

“The board has decided that he can be appointed to matches involving full member countries once more,” a spokesman for the governing body confirmed.

Hair’s return to the fold follows a six-month rehabilitation programme which he agreed to undertake last October, when he dropped a race discrimination claim against the ICC on the seventh day of a ten-day hearing at a London employment tribunal.

The row over Hair’s umpiring style and treatment has served to highlight deep-seated fault lines in cricket, where the traditional dominance of England and Australia in the sport’s corridors of powers has increasingly been challenged in recent years by India – by far the world’s most valuable cricket market – and its south Asian neighbours.—AFP