Re: Hair to be ump in Pak-Ind series!
Well we only have our board to blame, after all we wouldn't want to disturb the good will! India's strong stand against Bucknor has paid them dividends, and he has conveniently disappeared from Indian fixtures. Hair has been far more controversial than Bucknor, but he is against a much weaker and inept opposition.
While the Pakistan team has been performing very well ON the field, our OFF the field activities still leave a lot to be desired. Poor lobbying and mismanagement has resulted in the following failures:
Players constantly getting banned and unbanned with regards to bowling actions as compared to how smoothly Harbhajan and Murali were resolved.
Getting pushed around by other countries in deciding match venues, we must be the only board that gets dictated by the TOURING party.
Unable to lodge any kind of stand or complaint regarding the consistent poor umpiring by Hair and Bowden. I don't include Koertzen although he is far from perfect simply because his wrong decisions go BOTH ways. With Hair and Bowden, it's all one way traffic. As a result, we are bound to suffer further.
Got pushed out of hosting the Asia Cup just because India pulled out at the last minute with the ridiculous excuse of "busy schedule". That busy schedule was privy to them at the time the Asia Cup was scheduled.
Most importantly, PCB has failed to give its players the necessity of playing Test Cricket. Pakistan will be playing a grand total of 13 Test in 2006. Bangladesh played 30 odd this year and Australia played close to 50.
Instead of grooming more high quality local umpires like Aleem Dar, we have needlessly precedent the use of two neutral umpires on home tours. This way the standard of Pakistani umpiring will stay like those of Rauf and Ghauri.