Hair labels ICC chief Lorgat a bully

Sydney, Mar.9 (ANI): Test umpire Darryl Hair has labeled ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat a bully for telling on-field officials caught in the recent Lahore attack to be "more rational" about their experience.

Australian umpires Simon Taufel and Steve Davis have complained that Pakistan failed to protect them when gunmen opened fire as they travelled behind the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore on February 2.

Lorgat, the umpires' boss, suggested on Sunday that they were overwrought and needed to reflect on events calmly.

Hair reacted furiously in his capacity as head of the New South Wales Umpires and Scorers Association, an organisation that counts Taufel as a life member.

He said both Taufel and Davis had appeared measured and rational when commenting on the attack, which left eight Pakistanis dead and seven Sri Lankan players and an assistant coach wounded.

"No one could possibly comprehend the frightening and life threatening nature of the predicament they found themselves in," The Herald Sun quoted Hair, as saying.

"For Mr. Lorgat to blandly ask them to be 'more rational' I think (smacks of) bullying and they are embarrassed that the full truth of the situation came out into the open."

He suggested Lorgat go on a management course to help him understand his role as head of the ICC and his organisation's duty of care to players and officials, which it had "clearly failed to provide on this occasion".

"I wonder if Mr Lorgat would be making his shallow and insincere comments if it had been he trapped in a hail of bullets and felt abandoned by the very security forces that were supposed to protect them," Hair said.

He described Lorgat's comment that the umpires were going through a difficult time as "the biggest understatement of all time" and questioned the ICC chief's assertion that "cricket must go on in Pakistan".

"Does someone have to die before ICC even remotely begins to understand the reality of the matter?" Hair said. (ANI)