Pakistan fuming over 'cheats' remark

KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board is left fuming after Darrell Hair disclosed at a hearing that South African umpire Rudi Koertzen had described the Pakistan team as 'cheats' during the World Cup in March.
    
The racial discrimination case brought by the controversial umpire against the International Cricket Council in a London employment tribunal took a serious turn on the second day of the hearing when the Australian, in a witness statement, said he received a phone call during which Koertzen expressed his pleasure at Pakistan being knocked out of the Cricket World Cup by minnows Ireland.
    
Hair claimed Koertzen, after exchanging pleasantries, said: "That's great news, those cheats can now go home."
    
Hair said ICC umpire's manager Doug Cowie handed the phone to Koertzen to talk to Hair.
    
Hair told the tribunal that he responded to Koertzen's comments by saying he was neither happy nor unhappy about the result and that he thought there were 'other people' in the room listening to the call.
    
The International Cricket Council when contacted refused to make any comments on Hair's statement, saying the case was still in progress so it would not be appropriate for them to comment on its proceedings.
    
But a senior PCB official said efforts were being made to confirm if what Hair had said was true.
    
"This is a very serious matter for us. We would like to know what actually has been said," PCB chief executive Shafqat Naghmi said.
    
"We don't want to jump to conclusions until we get this confirmed from the tribunal," Naghmi said.
    
"But obviously it is a serious matter and if it is true we will lodge a protest with the ICC and want this issue cleared up and resolved as soon as possible," he said.
    
Koertzen is currently on the ICC elite panel of umpires but was not appointed for the Twenty20 World championship in South Africa last month after the fiasco in the final of the World Cup in West Indies also involving Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar and West Indian Steve Bucknor.
    
Koertzen has stood in several of Pakistan's matches and has also visited the country to supervise series.
    
A source in the Board said if what Hair had said was true than not only Koertzen but also the ICC umpires manager Doug Cowie had a lot to answer for.
    
"We can't have our team being called cheats."
    
Hair is suing the ICC for racial discrimination and racial harassment on the grounds that the ICC removed him from the panel after being pressured by Pakistan and India.
    
He had supervised the controversial Oval Test last year between Pakistan and England along with West Indian Billy Doctrove where they penalised Pakistan for ball tampering which led to a protest and the umpires awarding the match to England by means of a forfeiture.
    
An ICC adjudicator later cleared Pakistan of ball tampering charges but banned Inzamam for four games for bringing the game into disrepute and also gave a damning report about Hair's conduct in the match.
    
Hair was removed by the ICC Executive Board from the elite panel during a meeting held in Mumbai last year.