Why an Australian cricket captain gave an umpire zero out of 10

May 29, 2026 — 3:30pm

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Two days of the infamous 1988 Karachi Test match were still to be played when Australia’s team manager Colin Egar rang the Pakistan Board secretary to demand “seats on the next plane to Bangkok” to take Allan Border’s furious team home.

And, a trove of newly unearthed documents reveal, Border signed a captain’s report that gave the umpire Mahboob Shah a zero out of 10 score for his decision-making, as Egar had earlier threatened to do.

The documents have shed fresh light on one of Australian cricket’s ugliest chapters, revealing exactly how close the tourists came to quitting in the middle of a Test match after becoming incensed by a string of umpiring decisions on a parched pitch.

As Australia’s white ball team begins a far less contentious series in Pakistan, with the first ODI to be played on Saturday night in Rawalpindi, the correspondence obtained by this masthead has shone new light on an episode that turned out to be something of a watershed for international cricket - leading ultimately to the introduction of neutral umpires.

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Many of the essential facts of the story are well known.

In the first Test match in Pakistan since an angry confrontation between England captain Mike Gatting and umpire Shakoor Rana, Australia’s players, manager Egar and coach Bob Simpson were angered over the first two days by a series of lbw appeals refused as home captain Javed Miandad carved out 211.

That anger spilled over on day three as the Australian batting reply fell apart amid several equally contentious decisions against them, on a bone dry pitch that had started to crack and take spin very early in the match.

The Australian players initially voted to fly home, with only young players Tony Dodemaide and Jamie Siddons preferring to stay, before the affair cooled down and the teams continued the series in Faisalabad.

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But the documents from during the Karachi Test match and afterwards make it clear how rapidly and vehemently Egar and Simpson protested, to the point of demanding plane tickets home before the game was over.

“Most amazing of all, last night the Australian manager demanded seats on the next plane to Bangkok - a request he later cancelled after a team meeting,” then PCB secretary Arif Abbasi wrote to the Australian Cricket Board on September 19, day four of the match. “You can well imagine the consequences of such an occurrence.”

Abbasi’s letter, alongside those of sponsor representative Tahir Menon and the two umpires Mahboob Shah and Khizar Hayat, relay in vivid detail the degree to which they were confronted, and affronted, by Egar and Simpson.

The pair had met Abbasi before play on the third morning of the game, when Pakistan were still batting.

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“They were not satisfied with the umpiring of Mr Mahboob Shah in the Test match at Karachi,” Abbasi wrote. “On being asked to be more specific they claimed that Mr Javed Miandad was not given out.

“They said they will not let him stand in any Test match in the future. Mr Colin Egar told me that he would give him a “Zero”. This was on the morning of the third day when the Pakistan innings was still not complete.

“Egar and Simpson stated that if any of their batsman were given lbw, they would not tolerate it and that they would protest. They felt that umpire Khizar Hayat was very good.”

Later in the day, as Australia fell further behind in the game, Egar and Simpson protested again. In their search for Abbasi, they bumped into Menon, who worked for the tobacco company Wills. After Menon told where Abbasi was likely to be, he described Simpson’s reply.

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“Mr Simpson again shouted, saying, why are you smiling - you are cheating - you Pakistanis are cheats,” Menon wrote. “You stop this, or we are going to call off the tour.”

Not yet content with their protests, Egar and Simpson called a press conference for travelling journalists, but Egar also confronted the umpires Shah and Hayat in the match officials’ room. Egar, who was elected chairman of the ACB the following year, was a former Test umpire of high standing.

Australian men’s tour of Pakistan and Bangladesh

May 30 - 1st ODI v Pakistan, 9.30pm, Rawalpindi

June 2 - 2nd ODI v Pakistan, 9.30pm, Lahore

June 4 - 3rd ODI v Pakistan, 9.30pm, Lahore

Three ODIs v Banlgadesh - June 9, 11, 14, 3pm, MirpurThree T20 Internationals v Bangladesh - June 19, 19, 21, 6pm, Chattogram.

In their subsequent letter, Shah and Hayat described what took place:

“The Australian team manager, with a view to pressuring the umpires, came to the umpires dressing room and said, ‘Gentlemen, I want you to know we have made a very strongly worded protest against your umpiring. We have really been disappointed. We hope that you will protect our batsmen the same way as you have been protecting the Pakistanis. We hope you will stay consistent’. “We view his action as a deliberate and wilful attempt to intimidate the umpires.”

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Abbasi’s account of events concluded with a counter-demand, that the ACB bring Egar and Simpson to heel, lest the future of international cricket be threatened.

“The behaviour of the Australian manager and coach is inconsistent,” he wrote. “To give a press statement on an umpire and a wicket on which one team had reached almost 500 runs is unprecedented.

“One is confused by the behaviour of your management. They have chosen to believe the worst regarding the Board. Unless the Australian Board intervenes immediately to control Messrs Egar and Simpson, they could well take actions which could have far-reaching consequences for international cricket as presently structured.”

Egar, who wrote separate reports about the Karachi pitch and also the umpiring, summarised how he felt the Australian team had been conspired against.

“The Test pitch ... was unfit for Test cricket by day two,” he wrote. “Without incorrect umpiring decisions a total of 250 runs would have been impossible in the first innings.

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“The incorrect umpiring decisions over five days assisted the team batting first but not the team batting second and third, on an under prepared pitch, not suitable for any cricket much less Test cricket.”

In his subsequent report to the board, ACB chief executive David Richards explained how tensions rose.

“This below standard Test pitch, coupled with some dubious umpiring decisions, with what was felt by the players as bias against the Australian team, left our team and management in an angry and disillusioned mood,” he wrote.

“So much so that, in the judgment of Col Egar and Bob Simpson, they felt it necessary to make public comment by the end of the third day of the Test. Both held the view that if that action had not been taken, there could easily have been some on-field remonstration by Australian players.”

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“By the rest day, our team had met and there was a majority view that Col should discuss with the Board the possibility of the tour being terminated.”

This ultimatum led to a frenzied round of phone calls. Then ACB chairman, Malcolm Gray, spoke privately to Mike Coward, then a senior writer with the Sydney Morning Herald, about the state of play. Coward was firm in stating that Egar and Simpson had reacted poorly.

Gray and Richards duly allowed the match to play out before rushing to any decisions about bringing the team home - a measure of calm deliberation that arguably saved the tour.

“That request was relayed to me on Tuesday night, and of course led to close consultation with the chairman, and subsequently on Wednesday with those members of the executive committee with whom I could make contact,” Richards wrote.

“Everyone’s view was that the tour should continue, preferably with the players also reaching that conclusion in the quieter circumstances of a post-match meeting, rather than, as was reported in the press, continuing under protest. Commonsense prevailed.”

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Following through on Egar’s earlier threat, the captain’s report duly rated Shah zero out of 10 for his umpiring in the Test, while Hayat was rated a comparatively complementary seven out of 10.

“This was a conspiracy from the word go. We are not going to be allowed to win,” Border said once Pakistan’s innings victory was complete. “The feeling that we were never in the game right from the word go is what really irks the players. We weren’t even given a chance and that is most depressing.”

Unsurprisingly, the Pakistan board chose to swiftly reappoint Shah and Hayat for the next Test, and ignored Australian protests that they should not.

The episode caught enough attention in Australia that 60 Minutes sent reporter Mike Munro to Faisalabad to confront the team. Border’s team brushed that off, and went on to perform creditably in the final two drawn matches.

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By the time Australia next toured Pakistan in 1994, international cricket had reverted to a system of neutral umpires that continues to this day. Simpson and Egar, remarkably, were also coach and manager for the trip, which was to become infamous for rather different reasons - match-fixing.

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Daniel Brettig is The Age's chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X.

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