Colin Egar

Colin John "Col" Egar (30 March 1928 – 4 September 2008) was an Australian Test cricket umpire.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was increasing concern in the cricket community about illegal bowling actions, especially as during that period there were only home umpires, rather than officials from third nations.

Several conferences were held to discuss issues of enforcement and modifications to the laws of cricket.

One of the main points of controversy was the Australian fast bowler Ian Meckiff, whose action had particularly angered the English press and parts of the cricket community.

Egar made his first-class umpiring debut during the 1956–57 season when he stood in South Australia's home Sheffield Shield match against Queensland at the Adelaide Oval.

This was Egar's only appointment for the season.

At the time, there were no neutral umpires, and the host association provided the officials, so Egar's Sheffield fixtures all took place at the Adelaide Oval.

During that era, the Shield program consisted of eight matches for each state, with four home games.

The following season, Egar became more of a regular, standing in three of the four matches at Adelaide Oval.

In 1958–59, Egar stood in all but one of South Australia's three home Shield matches, and officiated a game involving an international team for the first time.

He oversaw two matches between South Australia and the touring England cricket team of Peter May, but he was not appointed in any of the five Tests.

At the end of this season, the veteran Australian Test umpire Mel McInnes retired after a controversial season and a series of questionable decisions that prompted May and English manager Freddie Brown to call for his standing down.

This left a vacancy for an Australian Test umpire.

During the 1959–60 Australian summer, there were no home Tests as the national team was in the Indian subcontinent.

In the meantime, Egar stood in all four Shield matches at the Adelaide Oval.

Born in Malvern, South Australia, Egar umpired 29 Test matches between 1960 and 1969.

Egar started his career as an umpire of Australian rules football and quickly gained a reputation for being a forthright arbiter.

He became an umpire in district cricket, and gained a reputation for his willingness to no-ball suspicious bowlers for throwing.

In his district career, he called bowlers on eight occasions, not counting multiple no-ball calls against a bowler in the same match.

The 1960–61 season saw the first Tests on Australian soil since McInnes's retirement.

Egar stood in South Australia's matches against Victoria, the West Indies and Tasmania, before being selected to make his Test debut.

In the match against Victoria, he made his first throwing call against a bowler at first-class level.

During the match, Egar no-balled South Australian fast bowler Brian Quigley twice on the first day as Victoria batted first.

He did so from the bowler's end as Quigley was trying to extract extra pace from the slow pitch.

As the calls were made from the bowler's end, almost all of the spectators thought it was for Quigley overstepping the bowling mark, the most common mode of infringement; the fact that Egar made called the bowler for throwing only became apparent to most in the newspapers the next day.

Quigley changed his action, but his results thereafter were not enough to gain selection.

His first match was between Australia and the West Indies at Brisbane on 9–14 December 1960.

The game resulted in the first tie in Test match history when Egar's partner Col Hoy adjudged Ian Meckiff run out during the final over of the match.

Hoy and Egar stood in every match of that most dramatic of all Test series, and the West Indies captain Frank Worrell was full of praise for the umpiring in that tension-filled series.

Hoy wrote in the newspapers about his experiences at the end of the season; at the time, the practice of player and officials concurrently doing media work was heavily frowned upon and he never umpired a Test again.

Due to his Test commitments, Egar stood in only two Shield matches for the season.

During the Tests in 1960–61, as well as in other first-class matches, Egar officiated over Meckiff's bowling, and deemed his bowling legitimate.

In the following summer, 1961–62, Egar stood in all four Adelaide Oval Shield matches as well as a match against a touring New Zealand team.

There were no Tests during the season.

In the match against New Zealand, he no-balled South Australian paceman Gordon Brooks for throwing in the sixth ball of his first over.

It was Brooks' tenth first-class match, having made his debut in the same season.

Egar had ruled Brooks legitimate in four previous matches at first-class level, but had no-balled him in a district match in Adelaide.

However, Brooks played in a further 16 matches for South Australia over the following three years without incident.

During the 1962–63 season, Egar officiated in Ashes Tests against England for the first time, standing in four of the five Tests, missing the Third Test at Sydney.

He stood in four of South Australia's home matches, two in the Shield, and the others against England.