Don Oslear: Test match cricket umpire who became a central figure in the 1992 ball-tampering affair

When coloured clothing was introduced for one-day domestic matches, Oslear, sporting a bright blue coat and baseball-style cap, walked out at the start of his game at Grace Road carrying a crate of empty milk bottles and shouting, ‘Milko!’

An injured Geoff Boycott is led off by umpire Don Oslear during the fourth Test between England and West Indies at The Oval in 1980 (Rex)

Fearless, forthright and often abrasive, Donald (Don) Oslear found considerable fame as an international cricket umpire and, in the process, became one of the foremost authorities on the laws of the game. What made his achievements all the more remarkable was the fact that, unlike most of his colleagues, Oslear had never played the game beyond club level.

However, in taking his commitment to ensure and enforce fair play too seriously for the comfort of many of the game’s administrators, having become embroiled in the infamous ball-tampering affair of 1992, he subsequently left the game he loved ahead of what should have been his final curtain.

Born in Cleethorpes, the eldest son of a Grimsby fish merchant, while his academic achievements as a pupil at Elliston Street Secondary School were somewhat undistinguished, he did find sporting success. While working in the fishing industry he kept goal for Hull City as an amateur, and for Grimsby Town as a semi-professional, and was also an ice hockey goaltender for Grimsby. In later years he returned to the sport as a referee.

Following in the footsteps of his father and younger brother, as a hard-hitting batsman capable of playing many delightful cameo innings, like them Oslear enjoyed a long association with Cleethorpes Cricket Club.

As his playing career wound down, Oslear began to make an even deeper impression on the game as an umpire. Having initially served his apprenticeship in local league cricket, he soon progressed to the Second XI Championship, before eventually graduating to the Minor Counties list. Elevated to the first-class panel in 1975, at the relatively late age of 46, over the course of the next 19 years, very much a meticulous master of detail, he would officiate in some 355 first-class matches. An imposing figure, exuding a natural authority, he very quickly became a readily identifiable and highly respected figure on the county championship circuit.

Oslear’s input and expertise proved pivotal over many years in the development of the Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers. This national federation primarily focused on the recruitment and training of officials and proved a particularly apt vehicle for his tireless advocacy. While a member of its general council, Oslear also served in the important role of national training officer. Revelling in the exacting business of conducting seminars and masterclasses, his talents increasingly occupied a much more international landscape as winters were taken up umpiring and lecturing everywhere from New Zealand to Zimbabwe. He undoubtedly had countless friends on every page of the atlas.

Promoted to the Test panel in 1980, becoming only the third Englishman with no first-class playing experience to umpire in a Test match, Oslear duly stood in the first and fourth Tests of England’s series against the West Indies, and the following year, 1981, he officiated in the second and fourth matches of that famous series against the Australians. During the Edgbaston encounter, having controversially given Australian opener Graeme Wood run out, subsequent replays backed his judgement. Between 1980 and 1984, having umpired five Test matches, he also officiated in eight one-day internationals, including the 1983 Prudential World Cup semi-final at Old Trafford.

For the fourth Texaco one-day international between England and Pakistan, scheduled to take place at Lord’s on 22 August 1992, Oslear had been appointed the third umpire. An already acrimonious tour descended further when England, chasing 204 for victory, reached 140 for five at lunch. By then, England batsman Allan Lamb had become concerned at marks on the ball made, he alleged, by the Pakistani bowlers. The umpires, John Hampshire, Ken Palmer and Oslear, in consultation with the ICC match referee Deryck Murray, changed the ball under the terms of Law 42.5, which deals with ball-tampering. However, no one, most notably Murray, ever gave a public reason for their action.

Fearing that the matter was being swept under the carpet by the authorities, Lamb, in contravention of his contract, authored a hard-hitting article which a few days later appeared in the Daily Mirror. In it he made a brief mention of Lamb’s former Northants teammate, one-time Pakistani Test bowler Sarfraz Nawaz. Subsequently served with a writ for libel by Nawaz, the case was eventually heard at the High Court in November 1993. Appearing as a witness for Lamb, Oslear was asked by Mr David Eady QC, “Are we correct in thinking that the ball was changed under Law 42.5, Mr Oslear?” “Most certainly, sir,” Oslear replied, helping to bring the trial to a swift conclusion.

Dropped from a number of Test and county cricket board committees, having been elected chairman of the First Class Umpires Association in 1990, he was replaced there by the former Somerset cricketer Roy Kerslake. In 1993, in what would be his last season on the first-class list, he would further infuriate the Lord’s hierarchy. When coloured clothing was introduced that year for one-day domestic matches, Oslear, sporting a bright blue coat and baseball-style cap, walked out at the start of his game at Grace Road carrying a crate of empty milk bottles and shouting, “Milko!” That year too, he helped create what became a seminal text, The Wisden Book of Cricket Laws.

In 1996, four years after that turbulent “Summer of Swing”, and just as Pakistan were again touring England, in partnership with Jack Bannister, Oslear laid bare his battles with the cricketing establishment, by penning Tampering With Cricket. In it he recalled that he had been the first umpire to report suspected use of ball tampering when Imran Khan took 6-6 in only 23 balls in a hitherto high-scoring match against Warwickshire in 1983. He subsequently reported certain Surrey bowlers, including the Pakistani player Waqar Younis, on three occasions in 1991, his warnings to the Test and County Criocket Board again going unheeded. To the end he remained very much his own man.

Donald Osmund Oslear, cricket umpire, born 3 March 1929, died 10 May 2018