I, for one, am very glad to see Hair back. An umpire has to be, first and foremost, a good decision maker. Obviously, diplomatic skills are nice, but not essential. The best umpires (Bird especially) have both, but choosing one or the other, decisions come first.
I think Hair got a lot of unfair stick at the Oval. For a start, as umpire, he followed the rules, was supported at the time by Doctrove, and so hasn't done anything wrong. If the rules are wrong, that's a different matter, you can only follow the ones in place at the time.
When he asked for quite a substantial sum of money, I don't think that was unreasonable at all. All he asked for was the rest of his contract to be paid and he'd go quietly, giving the ICC an option. If they didn't want to, fair enough, he'd sit there getting paid as before whether the ICC were asking him to umpire or not. It's easy to see why the ICC would want to avoid such a situation and I think Hair was doing them a favour by offering to resign now - but who on earth would possibly do so in a way that hits themselves in the pocket?
The only thing I disagree about his reinstatement is the fact he will not be umpiring Pakistan. IMO, if the ICC are happy that he's good enough to be on the elite panel, you should be able to umpire any international in the world. Keeping him away from pakistan set's a dangerous precident, and with the power of the Asian bloc I wouldn't be at all surprised if a few teams get to pick and choose their umpires in a few years, a situation that must be avoided at all costs.
