Sacked Hair considers his future

Darrell Hair is waiting to decide whether to take legal action after his sacking from the ICC elite umpiring panel. Hair was dumped following a vote at the ICC's board meeting as part of the fallout from his role in The Oval Test abandonment in September.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported Hair was considering his options at his English home in Lincolnshire. "I don't know what's going to happen," Hair told the paper. "I'm not going to make any comment at this stage."

Hair did not say when he would speak publicly about his dismissal. "That all depends on what develops in the next few days," he said. The umpiring future of Hair, who has 17 months to run on his ICC contract, is also clouded, but there have been suggestions he could be appointed to the Australian panel while roles in England have previously been discussed.

The Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland said he was disappointed with the ban and he would welcome Hair back to umpire state matches in Australia if possible. "We don't agree with the ICC's decision and are concerned about the implications which could see international umpires concerned about off field consequences of calling decisions as they see them," Sutherland said.

"World cricket needs champion cricketers, but it also needs world-class umpires who are equivalently skilled at what they do. To aspire to these heights, those umpires need to have confidence in the system - that they are supported by best-practice administration and processes."

Malcolm Speed, a lawyer and the ICC chief executive, said he was confident with the ICC's stance. "ICC has a number of lawyers on staff," Speed said. "We're well aware of our legal position. It's correct that Darrell Hair is contracted until March 2008. We need to have some further discussions with Darrell before we get ahead of ourselves."