By Tony Cozier
AT five feet, four inches, no taller than a jockey, even shorter in a characteristic crouching stance behind the stumps like a rider in the home stretch, Douglas Sang Hue was dwarfed by the towering fast bowlers of his time who pounded past him in their delivery stride.
As an umpire who presided over them, firmly but unfussily, Sang Hue was a Colossus. There was no match referee, no DRS or no 15 degrees flex to be considered in his time; umpires alone were in charge of the game.
A Jamaican of the minority Chinese populace, he was a moderate club cricketer who so quickly established a reputation as an umpire that he was appointed for his debut Test, the fifth on India’s tour of 1962, without previously officiating in a first-class match. In all, his record was 31 Tests between then and 1981.
He was at his peak in the 1970s; he officiated in all five Tests, a first for a West Indian, in Australia’s series in the Caribbean in 1973, a sequence repeated when England came the following year. Australia’s captain Ian Chappell, never one to offer praise lightly, rated him as the best in the world.
On Chappell’s recommendation, he was the only non-Australian on the umpiring panel during the two seasons of Kerry Packer’s