Quite how this has angered the whole sub-continent, though, is quite beyond me. Whilst controversial, you can’t argue with the fact that Hair was simply doing his job. Yes, the question over evidence of ball tampering is still up in the air, but that’ll be resolved one way or the other sooner or later. But after the accusations was made, the penalty runs were added and the ball switched, Hair did conduct himself professionally. He stuck to the law – the laws that govern the game of Cricket as we know it – and did things by the book. Inzy, Pakistan, and now Sri Lanka and potentially India, are arguably in the wrong to think they can boycott the system on these grounds, much less accuse Hair of being racist.

Surely such accusations are on a par with Hair implying that Pakistan are cheating? Both parties have history – Pakistan have previously been charged with ball tampering, Hair has previously been involved with dodgy decisions whilst umpiring in the sub-continent.

Regardless, Hair has said he’ll keep umpiring as long as the ICC want him. Whether they buckle under the pressure and say that he won’t umpire in any matches involving the sub-continent remains to be seen. Hopefully, though, the ICC won’t be listening to Dick French, former Australian umpire when deciding which matches he will stand in. When commenting on whether Hair should officiate or not, he shrewdly observed that:

“He can’t umpire Australia as a neutral, so he can’t then just umpire South Africa, the West Indies and England for the rest of his career.”

(link)

I’m guessing New Zealand will be thrilled to know the least of their worries will be the umpires, considering it seems they’ve been booted out of the International arena by Mr French.

Post from: EveryJoe

Hair today, gone tomorrow?

Anyway – 24 hours on and where are we? Well, still floating about in a cloud of confusion. This argument is going to rage and rage, until everyone gets really bored, and then remembers that the Ashes are but a few months away.

A few things have emerged:

1. Inzy is going to feel the brunt of this.

Inzamam-ul-Haq has been charged with bringing the game into disrepute along with changing the condition of the ball and, if found guilty, faces a ban of up to eight ODIs or four Tests. The ICC have confirmed that Inzamam will face a Code of Conduct hearing on Friday in London.

(Cricinfo)

His role in this is simply that he’s the captain of the side. And since no allegations of ball tampering have yet been directed at a specific player, he’s going to be the fall guy. Presumably it was his idea to make the protest. This seems harsh – Inzy conducted himself quite admirably during the whole furore, and whether the protest was right or not, you can’t blame the guy for defending his team’s honour. Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer reckons that if Inzy gets a ban, then the ODI series will get the can, despite words to the contrary from President of the PCB Shariya Khan.

2. The facts surrounding the actual ball-tampering offence are still unknown

Neither the umpires (Darrell Hair / Billy Doctrove) nor the match referee (Mike Procter) have made any kind of official statement as to what the alleged offence was. They haven’t singled anyone out. They haven’t said “at this this point this happened”. Television footage has not been able to provide anything. About the only thing we know is that one defence was that KP had been carting the ball in to the stands, so some damage was natural. Apparently, KP only started hitting sixes after the ball was changed. SO that scuppers that argument. But that’s not to say that a 56 over old ball hadn’t been thrashed in to the advertisement boards a few times.

Until such time that something more official is said about what was supposed to have actually occurred – this is issue isn’t going to rest.

3. The Pakistan Cricket Board (and presumably most of the sub-continent) hate Darrell Hair

The PCB near enough accused Hair of being racist:

“Darrell Hair has trained his guns on the team,” said Shahrayar. “It is a slur on the players and a slur to Pakistan itself. The team has had problems with him before, and have lost confidence in him as an umpire. They are deeply offended by his attitude. Ask the Sri Lankans, ask the Indians about the same man.”

(Cricinfo)

But the PCB won’t get out of this lightly, thanks to Sharyia Khan’s interview, where he insisted that the protest was only designed to last for a few minutes to make a point. The protest lasted over half an hour, during which time, the Umpires and English batsmen took to the field twice, and the Pakistan fielders were urged regularly to take to the field. The attitude of the Pakistan teams in many ways seems quite juvenile “We don’t like Mr. Hair therefore we’re going to throw our toys out of the pram, and refuse to play.” Not very professional in my book.

4. Darrell Hair may yet survive

The ICC had little choice but to stick up for their umpires, despite the absence of any formal proof of the ball tampering allegations and despite the intense media pressure to get some sort of solid information. Although they were on holiday today, so maybe more will break light tomorrow. There’s already history there – Hair is no stranger to controversy having made the headlines several times previously for being a stubborn, insensitive git, and most famously for no-balling Murali in 1995. It seems the matches forfeiture was largely due to Hair’s decision to not return to the field.

5. Old ball-tampering scandals are raised from the dead

The BBC did a top job of bringing scorn and despair on the likelihood that old ball tampering scandals will be brought to life – by bringing a bunch of ball tampering scandals back to life. Good work chaps.

6. And finally, at least irony has not been lost amongst all this

Geoff Boycott on the situation:

The ICC must be blind or stupid not to have realised that there is history between Darrell Hair, the umpire who accused them of changing the nature of the ball, and Pakistan. There were mutterings after the Headingley Test that Pakistan didn’t like Hair’s attitude. Pakistan regard Hair as an officious umpire and they don’t like his style of man-management. It should have been obvious to the ICC that appointing him to this series created a situation like a volcano waiting to erupt

Er, pot? Yeh, hi, it’s the kettle. YOU’RE BLACK.

Brilliant. My thoughts on the whole scandal? Well, I’m the same as everyone else. It’s a terrible way for the series to end, it’s been a total cock-up by pretty much everyone involved (with the exception of the England team, and perhaps the ECB), I believe the Pakistani’s should not have refused to come out after tea, but I understand why they took the action they did, I believe Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove absolutely did the right thing, but if they are unable to pinpoint the time at which the infringement took place, then they’ve committed a very serious error, oh, and Geoff Boycott is an idiot. Great cricketer, but a bit of an idiot. Buckle yourselves in – this one’s not going away for a while.

Post from: EveryJoe

Ball tampering, cheating, Darrell Hair and being no closer

UPDATED BELOW

Jag over at Cricket 24×7 has assembled a very pertinent list of questions that need answering:

# Was the ball actually tampered with?
# If so, did the umpires see someone do it, or were they merely basing their judgement on how they saw the ball at a specific point in time?
# Does the act of the umpires, i.e. charging the Pakistan team with altering the condition of the ball, amount to an accusation of cheating?
# Do the umpires have to necessarily point out exactly who they saw fingering around with the ball? If the issue were taken to court, could lack of evidence on TV prove that Pakistan didn’t tamper with the ball?
# If the ICC’s code of conduct is applied, will the entire Pakistan team be charged under a Level 2 offence, assuming that there’s no evidence against one specific individual?
# Should Pakistan have actually just conceded the match, thereby ensuring that their protest was amply reflected?
# What did Pakistan hope to achieve by not coming out and then coming back on the field?
# Where did they get that ball, which they were playing around with on the field, from? I thought the ball would have been in the possession of the umpires.
# Even if the umpires had come back, would they have offered the light to the batsmen?
# Why doesn’t the ICC rules of mobile phones in dressing rooms apply? We saw so many folks chatting on their mobile phones.
# How would some of these players, Mike Atherton, Waqar Younis, Shoaib Akhtar, have felt, given they’ve been at the receiving end of ball-tampering controversies earlier?
# What is match referee Mike Procter’s role? Why didn’t he get Inzamam, Strauss, Doctrove and Hair together to sort it out rather than wait for Pakistan’s dressing room meeting to finish?
# Does the umpires’ act of taking the bails off indicate the game is over? I think not. The bails being taken off indicate an end/abandonment of play for the moment (rain break/bad light/end of a session etc.). End of the game is when the stumps are uprooted (by the umpires and by the victorious team, if any!)
# Why hasn’t the ICC even bothered to make some sort of a statement on this issue, at least to let viewers/spectators know what’s going on?
# Why didn’t ESPN go to a single advertisement break?
# The last time a ball tampering controversy erupted big-time, an England-India test series was nearly cancelled. What about this match? What about the forthcoming one-dayers?

High-level meetings are still taking place, but ultimately the whole thing was a farce. I saw the whole thing unfold on Sky Sports and it was real soap opera stuff which just continued to get worse. The whole ball-tampering thing aside, the management of the incidents just heightened the nonsense. Whether or not Pakistan were right to protest is obviously up for debate (it seems to me that something should have been said during the Tea interval – perhaps the fact that nothing was said was why they decided to protest? That of course is the problem – everyone is so in the dark over what actually happened). But the umpires and batsmen going on, then off, then on, then off, then the players going on, then off… it was just ridiculous.

According to Sharyia Khan of the Pakistan Cricket Board – the Pakistani’s were simply trying to make a point – a protest – by being a few minutes late. But when they finally emerged on to the pitch, the Umpires apparently refused to return to the field. I say apparently, because obviously, no-one really knows. Cricinfo has gone positively mad with a flurry or articles, trying to shed some light – but as with all the other commentators, they’ve got very little solid information to say anything about it.

Incredible. At the very least, the debacle will take the heat off Kevin Pietersen, who I was otherwise going to be quite critical of, for yet again, showboating, rather than settling down and getting a really big score. Enough of him.

UPDATE

It has been officially announced that the game has been abandoned – there will be no further play. In theory, therefore, England win the series 3-0. What a way to win a whitewash.

Post from: EveryJoe

The Oval test nonsense, update

UPDATED BELOW.

I’ll try to summarise:

About midway through the second session, umpires Darell Hair and Billy Doctrove switched the cricket ball and awarded England 5 penalty runs. The implication being that Pakistan have been tampering with the ball. It’s a very serious accusation, and there is currently no video footage to prove or disprove it. The players then came off for Bad Light and took an early tea. David Gower, Beefy and Athers did their usual commentary on the whole debacle, but it was agreed that until there was some sort of statement from the match referee or the Umpires, then they couldn’t say a lot more.

But THEN… after tea, the Umpires went to the field, the batsmen went to the field but the Pakistan team refused to take to the field. It’s all unravelling now as we speak so I really can’t say much more. But it really looks like Pakistan have forfeited the game on the grounds of the decision. The biggest problem is that no one has a clue what’s going on – no announcements have been made, no-one has been told anything.

Some background, from Cricinfo:

At the end of the 56th over, bowled by Danish Kaneria, Darrell Hair went over to Billy Doctrove and was seen pointing at the quarter seam. The fourth umpire, Trevor Jesty, then brought out a box of balls and the England batsmen, Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood, were allowed to choose the next one to be used, in accordance with the Laws.

Law 42.3 states that in “the event of any fielder changing the condition of the ball unfairly … the umpires shall award five penalty runs to the batting side.” The Law explains that it is “unfair for anyone to rub the ball on the ground for any reason, interfere with any of the seams on the surface of the ball, use any implement, or take any other action whatsoever which is likely to alter the condition of the ball.”

The only exceptions to this rule are polishing the ball, removing mud from it and drying a wet ball on a towel. Playing regulation 42.1.2 (b) for this series also says: “In the event that a ball has been interfered with and requires replacement the batsman at the wicket shall choose the replacement ball from a selection of six other balls of various degrees of usage (including a new ball) and of the same brand as in use prior to the contravention.”

This is HUGE in the history of cricket. And still very exciting.

More soon!

UPDATE:

After about 20 minutes of having no idea what’s going on, it seems play might resume. The covers are starting to come off the pitch. This came as a result of a lot of door-slamming of the Pakistan dressing room doors, and then some senior Pakistani cricket bods appear to have had a word with the team. Match referee Mike Proctor has still made no statement.

UPDATE:

Pakistani players have emerged from their dressing room and taken to boos and jeers from the largely English crowd. It now seems the Umpires are refusing to take to the field. The England batsmen Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell are still hanging about with their helmets on, clearly having no idea what’s going on.

UPDATE:

The Pakistani players are now leaving the field again. The crowd looks bemused. Sky Sports commentators, David Gower Ian Botham and Nasser Hussein are still banging on about the fact no statement has been made.

UPDATE:

Play has been suspended for the day, though the match has not officially been abandoned, forfeited or conceded. Talks between the “appropriate” bodies will take place now and a statement will at some point be made. It now seems the sticking point are the Umpires – Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove – as all other interested parties – the England and Wales Cricket Board, the Pakistan Cricket Board, the ICC, the teams, the players have all said they want to play – it now rests on whether the umpires will resume. And of course that all boils down to exactly what has happened, what has been said behind closed doors, and whether or not the Umpires actually have valid grounds for making the accusations of ball tampering. Not much more can be said until we hear something more!

Post from: EveryJoe

Ball tampering scandal at The Oval