WEASEL WORDS OF THE WEEK

27-08-2006

You might think there's only one candidate for our weasel worded weekly winner - grasping umpire Darrell Hair - but you'd be wrong.

Granted, Hair was both stupid and greedy to demand half a million dollars in return for his retirement - as we‘ve already said on this site.

But foolishness is not quite in the same league as weasliness - which implies a level of verbal manipulation that isn't strictly in accordance with the truth (er does that sound a bit weaselly itself? Sorry!)

Anyway, dumb though Hair was, what sickened us even more was the claim by Zaheer Abbas the Pakistan team manager that the umpire's comments somehow represented a “moral victory” for the tourists.

Even worse, he claimed that it “proves our protest on the fourth day of the final test legitimate”.

It does nothing of the sort.

Pakistan had ways and means of airing their grievances without going into a monumental sulk that led to the first forfeit Test in history.

That's why whatever happened on the field of play, The Stirrer is calling them cheats - because they cheated paying customers of the cricket they had paid for and were entitled to see.