For the second time in a fortnight the inadequacies of the ICC Code of Conduct were exposed last night. Australian umpire Darrell Hair was found guilty of two breaches of the Code but escaped punishment after the Code of Conduct commissioner could not find any provision under which he could impose a penalty.

Hair was charged by the ICC after a complaint by the Board of Control of Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) in November about comments he made in his autobiography ``Decision Maker - An Umpire's Story'' relating to the 1995-96 Sri Lankan tour of Australia. Four charges were laid in relation to breaches of clause 8 of the Code of Conduct (relating to conduct detrimental to the game) following the executive meeting of the ICC in New Zealand last month, the matter referred to the Australian Cricket Board to conduct an independent hearing.

Last night in Melbourne, the ACB's Code of Conduct Commissioner Judge Gordon Lewis (a Victorian County Court judge) heard the charges. Hair represented himself at the hearing with the ICC represented by chief executive David Richards.

Lewis found Hair guilty of two of the charges and dismissed the other two. However, he said he was unable to find a penalty process in the Code of Conduct that applied to umpires. Consequently, no penalty could be applied despite the finding of guilt.

``We will take note of Judge Lewis' views about the inability of the Code of Conduct to adequately deal with any penalty for an umpire and refer his detailed reasons to our solicitors for their advice in regard to the Code'', Richards said in a media release issued today.

Following the hearing, the Australian Cricket Board named Hair as its nomination for the World Cup umpiring panel.

This is the second Code of Conduct hearing for the ICC in two weeks that has seen technicalities reduce the expected punishment. Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga was given a six-match suspension, suspendeded for twelve months, after being found guilty of breaches of the Code of Conduct for his on-field behaviour during Sri Lanka's game against England on January 23. A number of procedural deficiencies were identified in the course of the hearing, including the manner in which the charges were laid, the timeliness of the reports by the umpires, and the role of one person (the match referee) in both laying charges and arbitrating on them.