Thank you for that post Ninjaman. I was hoping to make the same point my self. Those arguing that Doctrove was treated differently are seeing Hair's eventual sacking as only a vote off based on what happened that day on the Oval. That's not the case. Even though Hair was the senior umpire and you can argue (albeit with limited justification) that Hair molded Doctrove into making the decisions that Hair wanted Doctrove to make, but that argument is a flawed one because it presents Doctrove as a man incapable of disagreeing with a senior colleague and just nodding his head at everything else that's suggested, which apart from being plain wrong, is a very naive conclusion to come to about an international umpire. Darrel Hair was actually voted off because the Oval Saga proved to be a culmination point for a long period in which Hair repeatedly had diabolical performances against the sides that voted him off. They sides that voted him off "loss confidence" in him as Ninjaman says.

Yes, there are fans (and who knows perhaps even administrators) that would attribute one of the reasons of this loss of confidence with his alleged bias, and one may agree or disagree with these reasons, but you cannot even when disagreeing, not see how the loss in confidence in it self is not unjustified. For the record, I do not, at this point in time, think that Hair is a racist man, or that any of his repeatedly and proven poor records against South Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, West Indies and Zimbabwe (the sides that voted him out) were born out of any sort of inherent bias he allegedly posses, racial or otherwise.

I tend to attribute this to his ego, stubbornnesses and arrogance. It may even be a byproduct of the frustration that doubtless he experiences because of all these constant accusations of bias, or it may just be coincidence, nothing else. But I do not at the same time, think that marking Hair as non-racist should mean we turn a blind eye to the fact that the reservations about his performances against these teams aren't unjustified. He HAS beyond doubt had several strings of poor decisions against these teams. I don't think there's enough evidence to conclude his poor performance against these sides was a byproduct of underlying racist views, but yet, I cannot stop helping think less of him as an umpire because of them. And I don't see why English, Australian and Kiwi fans should fail to acknowledge that the South Asian block's reservations about Hair's umpiring skills were on merit not entirely unfounded.

Sachin Tendulkar went through a phase where he got the wrong end of quite a few decisions by the great Steve Bucknor, Brian Lara went through a similar phase too (although I'm not sure if it was against one particular umpire or not), Pakistan it self went through a phase just before the lovely David Shephard’s retirement where he unfortunately ended up giving quite a few wrong decisions against us. It would be fairly unfounded to argue that Bucknor or Shephard’s actions are/were reflective of their “bias”. But yes, some people do have that demented mentality that always prompts them to see such things out of thin air. Yet, even despite this tendency, we've never witnessed this kind of sustained reservations against one particular umpire like we have against Hair, even though all umpires have had phases where they've given wrong decisions, and sometimes several of them withing a short space of time against the same team, names like Bucknor and Shepherd just as two examples are very well respected in the vast, vast majority of the South Asian cricket fans. That says some thing about why Hair is perceived as he is, and for just how long his standards must have dripped for his perception to have come to this level.

Yes, some people in the subcontinent do harbor a tendency to always feel a sting of foul play in terms of bias whenever an umpire makes a string of poor decisions against one particular team, and such perceptions should be condemned as knee jerk and insufficiently founded. But we should not at the same time, expect these teams, or their fans, to have extremely high confidence in these officials. And term it a grave "injustice" when they rightly decide to express their loss of confidence in them through the proper and legal channels that exist in the game's structure. If Hair really wasn't a poor enough umpire, so many teams would not have lost confidence in him. Even if you buy the argument that the Asian block always votes together to maintain their monopoly, that doesn't explain why South Africa, a team it self with white players, as well as the West Indies, should also vote against him.

If anything, as Ninj point out, Hair has damaged his own reputation as a non-biased by not only first filing this case and then retracting it (both purely for monetary reasons) but also with some of the things that he has brought forward in this case supposedly as evidence of the fact that he was racially discriminated against. In particular, the details shared of a private conversation with umpire Rodi Koetezn in which he quoted Rudi as having called the Pakistan team “cheats” was very disappointingly. I can see how some people would see this as foundation to not only prove Hair’s bias, but also start on brand new speculations on Rudi. I just fear now for the next time Rudi umpires in a match involving Pakistan, doubtless some people will view every wrong decesion he makes with suspicion. They’ll probably argue with some justification that an umpire can’t be presumed unbiased if he’s making such sweepingly generalized statements about a team. And while I personally do not think we can just assume Rudi said this based on what Hair is saying (there’s always the chance that he may have been quoted out of context or misquoted altogether), but yes, it certainly does create more tension and polarization in this debate and I don’t think that’s good for the game. I don’t know what in all the world made Hair think this would help prove he was racially discriminated against. It does however show once again how that man’s ego and sense of self-righteousness can take him to keep the better interests of cricket aside.

Of course their is racism in cricket. I reckon 99% of adults on this planet are racist, but maybe 1% are willing to admit it.

Australia is seemingly a racist country, yet probably no more racist than any other.
Last week, the Courier Mail ran the headline "BLACKLISTED" while showing a picture of African immigrants. This was in regards to the government's decision to scrap our African immigration program. Most polls ran over this subject gave a 80-90% approval rating for the government's decision. One might say that whites in this country are the racists, yet by the same token, Africans have banded into a "African community" with "community leaders" which indicates they prefer the company of their own kind as well. And this applies to all racial groups over here (save anglo-saxon) - they all have their own "community" with their own "leaders". The guilt, if any, can be applied to all parties.

As a child of the seventies, racism (dare i say white superiority?) was instilled in my generation - in our curriculum, the books we read, the movies we watched, and the stories and anecdotes we were told by our adults. But we were also instilled with the idea of "tolerance" which helped to limit the social damage done by human beings' innate racial awareness.

In regards to Darrell Hairs' generation, this sense of racial awareness was far more deeply rooted, with far less emphasis on "tolerance". Does that mean the man is a bigot? Who knows? But i suspect he is no different to anyone else of his age on this planet. For him to have the racist slur leveled against him by people who are probably just as racist as him does seem a bit rich i must say.

Was it J.esus that said something along the lines of "let he who is truly innocent cast the first stone" ? I'm not much one for the bible, nor any religion for that matter, but this little line is quite apt in this case i think.

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I know that this is going slightly off topic, but as an Indian living and working in the UK for the past 22 years, I have to agree with some of Seamer's comments. I have experinced some active racial discrimination in this country through the years, but what is very prevalent is the far less obvious "passive" racism - that "us" and "them" feeling - that is probably prevalent in 90% of adults on this planet. My work collegues treat me with a subtle difference which they probably do not do consciously, yet feels like stereotyping. That sort of passive racial discrimination is there everywhere, no less in my native India where every Caucasian, however well treated, will always be an "outsider". But I think that "communal" feeling mentioned by Seamer is a sort of herd instinct that has become so much a part of all our comfort zones over generations that IMO it is now impossible to eradicate it completely. The world will never become that small.

But that should not stop people in general and the cricketing community in particular to behave like one large unit where rivalry is restricted to the field. I hate this atmosphere where opposition players and supporters view each other with suspicion, the constant sledging that goes beyond acceptable gamesmanship and so on. Bopara is an Asian who plays for England but at the same time claims that Tendulkar is his ideal.....nothing wrong with that. I don't think teams or officials should be categorised into "white" and "non-white"; otherwise, someone will soon be claiming that a white English umpire, although "neutral", would discriminate against "non-white" Indian players in favour of "white" Australians or that a Sri Lankan umpire would favour Pakistan against New Zealand or some such nonsense. Such things will only cause lasting damage to the game more than anything else.

And so the racism in cricket issue just rolls on

Cricinfo - Symonds subjected to 'monkey chants'

Another thing that was instilled in my generation was "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"

and

"Nobody likes a dobber"

If people were proud of who they were, they would find that "insults" would roll right off them. Personally, no-one has ever said a insulting word to me that had any effect on me whatsoever.

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The UK has become more racist in the last few years, due to the rise of far right wing politics and the weak minded idiots that read the likes of the Daily Mail, and the Daily Express that would have us believe immigrants are simply evil (which I of course do not believe). Any other ethnicity besides white could be subjected to jeering here, even it is a few drunken 15 year olds on street corners with nothing better to do. Like for instance, I have a friend in India who may be coming over here to go to university. And I had to tell her, that she may have to watch herself on the streets of Birmingham late at night.
I totally agree with Nostromo that "passive" racism is prevailent in most countries around the world, maybe the odd comment behind someone's back, the occasional funny look in the street, and most people don't even realise they are doing it.

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Frank Skinner: "You know when Glenn McGrath trod on that cricket ball? Don't you wish it would've been a landmine?"

Well the feeling od "us" and "them" will remain as long as there is a visible difference. And its not entirely bad either. Whats bad is "hatred" or "discrimination" because he/she is different.

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My computer can beat me at chess.....but its no match for me at kick boxing.

I know that you and I have had some differences of opinion in the past DK, but for once I agree 100% with you. After all, the British don't holiday in the Caribbean to feel like being at home! Cultural differences, as long as they are mutually understood and respected, can make the world a more interesting place.

Saying, if people were proud of who they were that insults would roll right off them is actually easy to say but does not fit in with the reality.

On balance, the darker your skin colour, the more negative connotations are placed against you. Be they the serious things like job prospects, police harassment, perception by the general public as criminals, a myriad of names you can be called etc...to the more trivial.

Even in places where lighter skin colour is the minority, the reverse is not true.

A crowd of people can in unison make a monkey noise at a dark skinned person and everyone knows the historical baggae of that insult. On top of that everyone knows the other words people can use.

There exists nothing remotely close to that for white or fair skinned people.

Now you can be proud of who you are or not but after a while, if you know your history and the history of your ancestral people, it gets to you.

That's just the reality.

To dismiss the rise of right wing political parties as people purely being "weak minded" and easily manipulated by media rags ensures that England's social problems will continue to spiral downwards

Did Adolf Hitler rise to power because the German people suddenly became weak minded and easily manipulated? Of course not - Hitler came to power because the German people were suffering badly, a large part which can be attributed to terrible conditions imposed on them by the almost criminal Versailles treaty signed at the conclusion of WWI.

Now England, as opposed to 1930's Germany, is the 4th richest country in the world. Yet it's health system is a basket case, has education system almost as bad, a soul destroying welfare system, and a large section of it's society living in abject poverty, including many children and so on, and so on. For a country that is so rich, this state of affairs is scandalous. For many English, living standards in England 2007 is just as bad, if not worse than in Germany, 1933.

Now those poor, average ill-educated Englishman hear of the millions of pounds spent on the various immigration programs and wonder so much money is being spent on that, when their teeth are rotting. They wait for endless hours in a hospital for a doctor to see their sick child while seeing many non white people also waiting, and conclude that if those immigrants were not there, a doctor would see their child sooner. They see the odd non-white kid wearing the uniform of a good, high quality school and wonder why their child is forced to go to a poor one. And so on and so on.

Immigrants are something tangible that these poor, suffering, hope bereft people can grasp onto as a source of blame. But of course, these immigrants are purely the scapegoats. The real villains are the tiny elite that own all the wealth and control all the power. These people are not willing to part with a single pound to ease the suffering of these people, and instead create a police state ( at public expense of course) with identity cards, cameras pointing every direction, new "anti-terror" laws that have little to do with terrorism, but more to do with populace control, and so on and so on.

Frankly, England is crying out for a new Oliver Cromwell to tear down the whole rotten edifice by destroying the iron grip the elites hold over their country (in a political, non violent manner of course). Right wing parties play the race to their advantage and this suits the elites just fine - it is the left side of politics that these elites fear the most. They have read Orwell, and they will do whatever it takes to ensure his prophesy never comes to pass.

The 4th richest nation in the world, with a mere 60 million people and a small compact landmass, should easily be able to supply decent education, health services, jobs and welfare programs for all. If it does, you will find that the social ills of substance abuse, racial tensions ect will start to dissipate. A smart, courageous grass roots political party should start directing the ire of the "racists" to the direction it should be sent - the white wealthy elites. A good name for them would be the Oliver Cromwell party.

Anyway, that's my little political tirade over and done with for another month

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I hope everyone else sees the smiley at the top of that lot, Seamer! Blimey, mate - I don't know where you got it all from, but I hope the Aussie papers are not peddling such a load of baloney!

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan