Col Egar

Colin John "Col" Egar (30 March 1928 – 4 September 2008) was an Australian Test cricket umpire.

Born in Malvern, South Australia, Egar umpired 29 Test matches between 1960 and 1969.

Egar started his career as an umpire of Australian rules football and he quickly gained a reputation for being a forthright arbiter. He became an umpire in district cricket, and gained a reputation for his willingness to no-ball suspicious bowlers for throwing. In his district career, he called bowlers on eight occasions, not counting multiple no-ball calls against a bowler in the same match.

Egar made his first-class umpiring debut during the 1956–57 season when he stood in South Australia's home Sheffield Shield match against Queensland at the Adelaide Oval. This was Egar's only appointment for the season. At the time, there were no neutral umpires, and the host association provided the officials, so Egar's Sheffield fixtures all took place at the Adelaide Oval. During that era, the Shield program consisted of eight matches for each state, with four home games.

The following season, Egar became more of a regular, standing in three of the four matches at Adelaide Oval. In 1958–59, Egar stood in all but one of South Australia's three home Shield matches, and officiated a game involving an international team for the first time. He oversaw two matches between South Australia and the touring England cricket team of Peter May, but he was not appointed in any of the five Tests.

At the end of this season, the veteran Australian Test umpire Mel McInnes retired after a controversial season and a series of questionable decisions that prompted May and English manager Freddie Brown to call for his standing down. This left a vacancy for an Australian Test umpire. During the 1959–60 Australian summer, there were no home Tests as the national team was in the Indian subcontinent. In the meantime, Egar stood in all four Shield matches at the Adelaide Oval. The 1960–61 season saw the first Tests on Australian soil since McInnes's retirement. Egar stood in South Australia's matches against Victoria, the West Indies and Tasmania, before being selected to make his Test debut.