From accusing Pakistan of ball-tampering to suing the ICC, Darrell Hair has been a busy man over the past 14 months. He has been cast aside by his employers, accused of being racist, had emails asking for a pay-off leaked by Malcolm Speed and has just dropped a law suit against the ICC.

Hair was upset that, being a white man, he had been made to suffer whilst fellow umpire, Billy Doctrove, who is black and who backed Hair, has been allowed to continue as normal.

Hair has 'previous' with Asian countries after no-balling Muttiah Muralitharan for chucking and there were rumbles from Pakistan and other nations that he had shown racist tendencies against them. But Hair's racism case has shown once again how inept the ICC are.

Speed claimed that the ICC had 'lost confidence' in Hair yet they are now willing to give him another chance after realising they were going to lose the case against him. Before the trial, the feeling was that Hair was trying just to sanction a pay-off but the fact that he is dropping the case to try to resurrect his career speaks volumes of a man who stands up for what he thinks is right, regardless of the circumstances.

Speed himself is no stranger to controversy. Former England captain and now Sky Sports commentator Nasser Hussain revealed in an emotional interview how hurt he was by the ICC chief executive's handling of the match against Zimbabwe in the 2003 World Cup. This year's debacle in the West Indies was down to extortionate ticket prices, low attendances and few close-call matches. Again the blame lies at Speed's door.

It's difficult to comprehend how cricket's governing body can so easily disregard one of its top umpires. Judging by the manic scheduling of tours and complaints from international cricketers (mainly Kevin Pietersen), it is easy to see that the ICC cares much more about money then the progress of the game. I believe that the ICC have their priorities the wrong way round and unless there is change then the game will go backwards.