Test Umpire's Watershed Decision

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday September 15, 2008

Philip Derriman

COL EGAR 1928-2008

INTERNATIONAL cricket umpires do not look for controversy, but sometimes they cannot avoid it. At Brisbane's Gabba ground on December 7, 1963, Col Egar could not avoid being caught up in one of the great umpiring controversies of the century.

It was the second day of the first Test against South Africa, which had just begun to bat. Victoria's Ian Meckiff, a pace bowler with a suspect action, came on to bowl the second over of the innings. His second delivery was no-balled by Egar, standing at square leg, who believed Meckiff threw.

Throwing was a very contentious subject in cricket in the 1950s and 1960s. It still is; the law of the game has since been changed to avoid legal action and accommodate certain styles of bowling and degrees of bent arm. Egar's action was a watershed.

The umpire no-balled Meckiff three more times in that over, after which Australia's captain, Richie Benaud, decided not to let him bowl again in the match. Egar's ruling had immense repercussions. It ended Meckiff's career - he did not play first-class cricket again - and it earnt Egar the animosity of much of the Australian cricket public. He received a death threat, which Brisbane police took seriously; extra officers were stationed at the Gabba to protect him.

Egar, who has died at 80, is best remembered for his 10 years as a Test umpire, but had a longer career in cricket as an administrator, finally occupying the top job, Australian Cricket Board chairman, from 1989 to 1992.

So Egar spent much of his life in cricket, yet he was never much of a cricketer. The only son of James and Thelma Egar, who also had two daughters, Egar concentrated on tennis and Australian football at Christian Brothers College, Adelaide. He first made a name for himself as a football umpire, presiding over the South Australian grand finals in 1956 and 1957.

It was common then for football umpires to double as cricket umpires in the summer. Egar first stood in a Sheffield Shield match in December 1956. Four years later he made his debut as a Test umpire in the famous tied Test against the West Indies in Brisbane. It was a rapid promotion, which may have had something to do with the football grand finals. There was a belief then that if umpires could handle the stress of a grand final, they would probably handle the stress of a cricket Test.

In the mid-1950s, Egar and his father, an accountant, began a dry-cleaning business, which they built into a large and profitable enterprise. South Australian players of that era remember that, after umpiring at Adelaide Oval all day, Egar would collect the players' whites, take them to his laundry and return them, cleaned and pressed, before play next morning.

The dry-cleaning business made Egar financially independent, enabling him in the decades that followed to devote a huge amount of unpaid time to cricket, the game that had become his passion. In any case, he was by now a family man. He had married Elaine Erwin in 1951 and they had two daughters.

Egar was a strong-willed individual who would not compromise when he thought he was right. A fellow Test umpire who knew him well, Max O'Connell, thinks this was his greatest attribute as an umpire. The question arises: would another umpire less resolute than Egar have been prepared to no-ball Meckiff and bear the consequences?

Writing of the affair in his autobiography, My Country's Keeper, the Australian wicketkeeper Wally Grout said: "Col mentioned to me almost nonchalantly that he had had word from the police that there was a man on his way from Melbourne to assassinate him and that he might strike when Col was on the field. My immediate reply was that I hoped he didn't miss Col at square leg and hit me."

The death threat may have been a laughing matter, but Meckiff's misfortune was not. "We all felt deeply sorry for Ian," Grout wrote. Benaud recalled that it "was a very sad ending for Ian . . . it put enormous pressure on his wife and children".

Egar suffered, too. People who knew him say he was subjected to so much criticism and hostility that he went into his shell for years. Journalists sometimes found him difficult to deal with, probably because the affair made him wary of the media.

The affair did have a happy ending. Egar and Meckiff became friends in later years. On visits to Adelaide, Meckiff would invariably have a drink with the umpire who ended his career, in the Col Egar Bar at Adelaide Oval.

Col Egar is survived by his daughters, Helen and Vivien, and five grandchildren. Elaine, died in 2004.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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