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AUSTRALIA, Sunday - The paths of Muttiah Muralitharan and Australian cricket umpire Darrell Hair may cross again at the World Cup matches scheduled to be played in England during May and June this year. This possibility arises because the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) on Friday appointed Hair to officiate at the World Cup.

Hair no-balled Muralitharan seven times for throwing at a one-day cricket match played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on December 26 1995. By withdrawing from all games involving Sri Lanka in the recent-tri-nation one-day series, Hair avoided a confrontation with Muralitharan.

Andrew Ramsey, one of The Australian's cricket writers, points out that the use of independent umpires for all World Cup matches increases the likelihood of Hair being appointed to officiate in a match involving Sri Lanka, unless the tournament organisers deliberately prevent such an occurrence.

The Sydney Morning Herald's cricket correspondent, Mark Ray, reports that Hair has avoided paying a penalty for comments he made about the bowling action of Muralitharan in his recently published book 'Decision Maker.'

Hair is reported to have represented himself at a hearing at the ACB office in Melbourne last Thursday to answer four charges of bringing the game into disrepute under clause 8 of the International Cricket Council's code of conduct in 'Decision Maker'. Hair described Muralitharan's bowling action as ``diabolical''.

The hearing in Melbourne was conducted before the ACB's code of conduct commissioner, Judge Gordon Lewis.

Hair was found guilty on two of the four charges. However, Hair was not penalised because, according to Andrew Ramsey, Judge Lewis was ``unable to identify a penalty process in the code of conduct which applies to umpires.''

Ramsey points out that ``the code already faces a significant rewrite after Arjuna Ranatunga's lawyers argued it would not withstand a court challenge.''