GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP):

THE WEST Indies Cricket Board (WICB) complained to the ICC last year about the standard of umpiring after the team's 3-0 Test series loss in Australia.

As the fallout continued from Pakistan forfeiting the final Test to England due to ball-tampering claims, WICB director Chetram Singh says his team had also received biased or incompetent decisions.

"We don't want to pass judgment on what happened in England at the weekend, but we have had some harsh decisions in the past. In Australia, we had 16 or 17 glaring decisions and we had to complain," Singh said yesterday.

Current crisis

Australian umpire Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove of the West Indies imposed a five-run penalty for ball-tampering at The Oval in London on Sunday.

Pakistan, who had asked that Hair not officiate in its matches, refused to take to the field and forfeited the first match in Test cricket's 129-year-old history.

Singh said the current "crisis does not augur well for cricket," arguing that the ICC has to listen to the West Indies and Asian teams which have problems with particular umpires.

Ian Howell, Rudi Koertzen, Aleem Dar and Billy Bowden officiated in the Australia-West Indies series. Bowden has been voted by players as the least competent umpire on the ICC's elite panel.