SYDNEY (AFP) — Cricket Australia welcomed Darrell Hair's reinstatement as a Test umpire Wednesday and said the controversial official should be able to oversee matches in any Test nation, including Pakistan.
The Australian was barred from standing in top-level cricket matches following an abandoned Test between England and Pakistan in 2006, which ended with Pakistan conceding the first Test forfeit in the game's history.
Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young said Hair remained one of the game's most technically proficient officials and welcomed the International Cricket Council's decision Tuesday to reinstate him to the elite umpire's panel.
"We're pleased to see Darrell back," Young told AFP. "Cricket Australia has always had a view that he is, in a technical sense, an excellent umpire, one of the best two or three in the world.
"World cricket needs good umpires, it's got good umpires but it needs more rather than less, so it's pleasing to see him back and we look forward to seeing him back on the circuit."
Hair has said he will be prepared to umpire in Pakistan if called upon to do so, although the Pakistan Cricket Board have shown no sign of altering their stance that what they regard as Hair's error of judgement in the 2006 Test makes him unfit to officiate top level matches.
Young said CA believed Hair's reinstatement meant he was eligible to umpire in all Test-playing nations.
"It's an ICC issue but we would support the notion that the ICC should be able to send him wherever it wants to send him in the world whenever it wants to send him according to its rostering of umpires," he said.
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