ICC panel to review Harper's 'volume mistake'

The ICC will appoint a panel to investigate whether Daryl Harper had the volume feed in the television umpires' room turned up to the appropriate level during the fourth Test between South Africa and England at the Wanderers, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph.

The report said the ICC's team will include a lawyer and a former cricketer and will look into the episode where Harper was unable to hear a snick when Graeme Smith, who was on 15 at the time, apparently edged a catch behind off Ryan Sidebottom. Smith went on to make a match-winning 105 as England lost by an innings and 74 runs.

The England management made a formal complaint to Roshan Mahanama, the match referee, at the time but it was quickly rebutted in a statement from the ICC, who insisted that no wrongdoing had occurred.

Harper and Rudi Koertzen are the only people to have served on the ICC's elite panel of umpires since its inception in 2002, but he has come under repeated scrutiny after being involved in a series of mishaps. In addition to his mistakes in this series, there was controversy when England toured West Indies in February 2009 after Harper reprieved Ramnaresh Sarwan on scant evidence when the onfield umpire Tony Hill had given him out lbw.