Lawrence Booth, writing in the Guardian, feels that the ICC has lost face despite Darrell Hair’s decision to drop his racial discrimination case against them.
The truth, though, is that neither side has emerged with reputation enhanced. Hair's allegation of racism - based on the fact that he, a white Australian, was in effect sacked from the ICC's elite panel, while Billy Doctrove, his Dominican colleague at The Oval, was not - has been exposed as groundless. But his grievance forced the ICC to do its dirty-linen washing in public, and the game's governing body now faces serious questions after seven days of testimony at a London employment tribunal in which its handling of the case was shown to be amateurish at best.
Meanwhile, the Australian's Peter Wilson reveals that the chairman of Cricket Australia, Creagh O'Connor, went along with the ICC's decision to prosecute Hair, despite feeling that "Darrell should be allowed to continue to umpire."
