English umpire Peter Loader will wear a black armband in a second-grade cricket match this weekend to protest against the sacking of Darrell Hair.

"They introduced the spirit of cricket into the laws and then when an umpire applies it, they murder it by sacking him," the former Test bowler said.

Hair, at the centre of the Oval Test fiasco, was struck off from the Elite Umpires' list after an Executive Board meeting of the International Cricket Council in Mumbai last week out-voted the Australian 7-3.

A livid Loader blamed the ICC for giving license to players to do anything they liked on the field.

"You know what ICC stands for? 'I Can't Cope'. This now means that players can do whatever they like on the field and there is nothing the umpire can do about it," he was quoted as saying in The Age on Wednesday.

Loader was part of England's Ashes campaign in Australia in 1958-59.

He has taken permission from the Western Australian Cricket Association to wear the armband.