MELBOURNE, July 10: Controversial umpire Darrell Hair has been appointed to a Cricket Australia (CA) mentoring panel for prospective elite umpires.

Hair will join the four-man panel, which includes Ric Evans, David Levens and Bob Stratford, whose task will be to develop and improve the performance of umpires in Australia’s high performance programme, CA said on Thursday.

Hair was recently reinstated to the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Elite Panel of umpires after being dropped for his role in the 2006 Oval Test between Pakistan and England.

Pakistan had refused to return to the field after being docked five runs by Hair for alleged ball tampering, an allegation that was proved wrong at an ICC hearing in September, and the Test was awarded as a victory to England through forfeit. The ICC overturned the verdict earlier this month and declared the result a draw.—Reuters