Richard Boock: Talk about running with the Hairs ...

And then, in one bound, they were gone. An army of indignant tub-thumpers, so outspoken in their support of umpire Darrell Hair one moment, so solid in their opposition of him the next.

Where did they all go? You might well ask.

From this vantage point, they were last seen making embarrassing u-turns overnight and disguising themselves as the voice of reason, some even going as far as suggesting Pakistan might have a point after all.

Never mind that these are the same rose-tinted moralists, who only days earlier were tut-tutting about the murky, Asian-dominated world of cricket politics, about the umpire's word being final, and the need to put Pakistan in their place.

Whatever happened to their accusation that too many critics were playing the umpire and not the ball, that bowing to Pakistan would be a victory for ball-tamperers, and oh yes, the presumption that the umpire knows best?

Talk about running with the Hairs and hunting with the hounds.

All it took was the revelation of a couple of emails from Hair to his ICC bosses offering to resign for a US$500,000 ($785,000) payout, and suddenly the stuffed shirts were changing sides.

Apparently, to these fairweather friends, the idea of Hair cracking under the enormous media strain in England and making an error in judgment was so unforgivable that he now stands condemned on all matters.

To be frank, that sounds as stupid as the initial assessment that Hair was right because he was the umpire, and that Pakistan were wrong because the umpire had to be right.

No one could argue that Hair's offer to resign for a handy sum was unwise at best and potentially career-ending at worst. Any half-capable legal team will be quick to ask why, if the umpire thought he'd done nothing wrong, he was willing to step down.

And as ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed explained, there's now a need to deal with the possible accusation that the entire episode, or parts within it, could have been motivated by Hair's push for a payout.

Given that Hair made his offer to the ICC under extreme pressure, that he revoked it soon after, and that the support he initially received was so passionate, it's hard to explain why all his mates have vanished.

Maybe the answer is that, having carried on ad nauseam all week about no one being bigger than the game, they've finally come face to face with the realisation that this also applies to the umpire.

Whatever the case, it's simply not good enough to suggest that the emails have changed everything, as if Hair's integrity and judgment were fine last week, but are worthless now.

The bottom line is that Darrell Hair is the same person today as he was last week, when he stood during one of the darkest days in world cricket history.

His supporters, and indeed those who have suddenly become his detractors, need to accept that.