da premier bet： The International Cricket Council (ICC) Tuesday rejected Pakistan’sobjection and retained controversial New Zealander John Reid as matchreferee for the first half of the Asian Test Championship
da imperador bet： 22-Aug-2001The International Cricket Council (ICC) Tuesday rejected Pakistan’sobjection and retained controversial New Zealander John Reid as matchreferee for the first half of the Asian Test Championship.Pakistan host Bangladesh between Aug 29 and Sept 2 at Multan and thenplay against India at Lahore between Sept 12 and 16, pending New Delhiclearance. The remaining matches are between Sri Lanka and Bangladeshat Colombo and India and Bangladesh at Bangalore.In a press statement, the ICC said its policies don’t permit anymember country to veto the appointment of independent referees orumpires.The ICC statement added that the policy was reconfirmed at the ICCexecutive board meeting at Nairobi in October 2000. However, thetoothless and ineffective ICC forgot that it had removed Darrell Hairfrom the 1999 World Cup matches involving Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka hadrefused to play the games if supervized by Hair. The Australian hadcalled Muttiah Muralitharan seven times in an over during the 1995-96Melbourne Test.The statement, quoting ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed, said: “Ihave spoken personally to the PCB and John Reid about this matter andexplained the ICC’s position.”The PCB has assured me that John Reid will receive the samecourtesies that are extended to all ICC officials visiting thecountry, and for his part Mr Reid remains keen to fulfil hisappointment covering the (four) Test matches.”Pakistan, last week, had registered its protest against theappointment of Reid after the former New Zealand captain madecontroversial decisions which left cricket in a spin.Reid, in 1999, forwarded Pakistan paceman Shoaib Akhtar’s case to theICC after he was reported for throwing during the Perth Test byumpires Darrell Hair and Peter Willey. Ironically, Reid had not raisedany eye-brows against the pacer despite being the match referee in atleast two World Cup games involving Pakistan. However, the mostdebatable Reid’s decision was against current Pakistan captain WaqarYounis whom he handed a 50 per cent fine and one-match suspension onthe charges of ball tampering. Azhar Mahmood was also fined on thesame offence in the tri-nation one-day series in Sri Lanka last year.Reid’s cruel decision, which left a black spot on Waqar’s glitteringcareer, was an unilateral one as none of the umpires had reported theincident to the New Zealand.The ICC further said if India crossed borders for the icebreakingTest, South African Rudi Koertzen will be the third country umpire.
