Sport - Cricket

England appears the better side

— Photo: AFP

LAUGHING AGAIN: Michael Vaughan’s return to form has boosted England’s chances.

MANCHESTER: Darrell Hair, the umpire who ended the Oval Test between England and Pakistan controversially in 2006, makes his return to Tests when the second of the three-match series between England and New Zealand begins at Old Trafford on Friday.

Hair was highly rated before he awarded England the match, which many people, not just in Pakistan, considered as an uncompromising and high-handed attitude.

This week he has appeared to be rather more introspective after his absence from the game at its highest level.

“I still think that my decision making will be all right,” he said. “But it may be a matter of confidence.”

That hardly sounds like the man who called off a Test because he believed Pakistan did not want to continue.

In recent times Hair has been on a man-management course and it will be interesting to see if that has changed his attitudes.

Remember he was also the umpire who first no-balled Muttiah Muralitharan.

He was also the umpire who led the charge against batsmen who propped forward with their bat hidden behind their pads.

That is a pretend forward defensive shot, Hair said and few who grew tired of this tactic will quarrel with that verdict.

Cricket is also a game full of kindly people and many of them will be prepared to forget his contentious past and welcome Hair back.

But from ICC down he will be watched because the game also hates controversy whether it is from a cricketer or an umpire.

(This week MCC, the law-makers, have conducted tests to see if electronic gadgetry can bring better results. I am told that there has been an unwillingness to go any further and a wish that the old days would return. Then, according to selective memories, umpires made decisions that could not be judged properly, and batsmen walked even if they thought the umpire was wrong.)

On this bouncy Old Trafford pitch England will wish it had Andrew Flintoff bowling on his own ground and New Zealand wish it had Shane Bond, who is quicker than big Freddie and, sadly, just as injury prone.

Otherwise, there is no reason to change the opinion formed before the first Test. England is by a distance the better side, especially now that its captain Michael Vaughan is back to form and it should win the two remaining Tests.

Questions will be asked if it fails to push home its advantage in solid batting, a greater variety of bowling and Vaughan’s brain power.

The coach Peter Moores thinks a fit and firing Vaughan will be the key to an Ashes success next summer; how sure is he that Vaughan will play, never mind open the way to victory?

England will be unchanged for the fourth successive Test for only the fourth time in its 131-year history of 872 Tests; New Zealand is unlikely to fiddle with its bonny fighters either.

The teams:

England: Michael Vaughan (capt.), Andrew Strauss, Alistair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Tim Ambrose, Stuart Broad, Ryan Sidebottom, Monty Panesar and James Anderson

New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (capt.), Aaron Redmond, Jamie How, James Marshall, Ross Taylor, Daniel Flynn, Jacob Oram, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Chris Martin and Tim Southee.

Umpires: Simon Taufel (Australia) and Darrell Hair (Australia). Third umpire: Ian Gould. Match referee: Ranjan Madugalle (Sri Lanka).

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