Cricket: Former umpire Darrell Hair calls Murali as 'chucker' again

Former Test umpire Darrell Hair has restarted the chucking debate saying that several ICC umpires have doubts over Muthiah Muralidaran's action but do not call him for fear of "rocking their boat".

Hair, who was the first umpire to call Muralidaran for chucking in 1995, said the Sri Lankan off-spinner had also bowled several illegal balls in their 11-run loss to Pakistan in the World Cup last week.

"A couple of current umpires have said to me, 'Something is wrong', but they prefer to let it go," Hair was quoted as saying by 'Herald Sun'.

"There is still a lot of doubt about his deliveries.

"A few have told me, 'There is definitely something wrong with his action, but I am not going to call him'.

"They are the ones who have to live with that.

"If you are an umpire you're meant to uphold the law so both teams get a fair shake.

"There has been some umpires who think, 'I am on a good wicket here, I am making good money, I will not rock the boat'.

"It is not my style, it is obviously theirs." Muralidaran's 19-year career has largely been shadowed by the chucking allegations and since Hair no-balled him in 1995, the 38-year-old Sri Lankan have been cleared twice by International Cricket Council (ICC).

However, his career continued to flourish as he went on to become world's highest wicket-taker both in Tests and one-dayers.

"I watched a few of his deliveries in his game against Pakistan and I noticed the last few overs when he was really getting some turn on the ball, those would not have complied under scrutiny," Hair, who quit ICC's elite panel in 2008, said.

"But this is his last World Cup, he is going to bow out with a lot of fanfare and no umpire will be bothered by it." Hair also criticised the ICC for turning a blind eye to his doubts about Murali.

"Each time I wrote a list of concerns and put them in a report, but the report system wasn't working," he said.

"The only way it would have worked was if the Sri Lanka board listened to it and quite patently they did not want to.

"Back in 1995, I have no doubt he threw a hell of a lot of balls.

He had his action reviewed, but then he started bowling the doosra and there is no one in the world who can bowl that legally."