Hair did his part
Yesterday was absolutely the dark day in the history of cricket when Pakistan forfeited the 4rth test against England. Inzimam, the captain of the Pakistan Cricket Team called his players off the ground to register the protest against Australian Umpire Darrel Hair’s controversial decision of ball tempering. The decision is controversial because Hair couldn’t come up with single evidence yet that Pakistanis tricked with ball.
Ok we all know Darrell Hair and his controversial decisions against Asians teams like Pakistan, India and Srilanka.Even Inzy and his team and Pakistani officials were fully aware of it. The time when incident took place and Hair threw another card, Pakistan came into trap and did what actually Hair or whoever was with him had planned that is, Inzy lost his senses couldn’t react promptly when the ball was changed by Umpire. He didn’t demand any evidence on the spot due to whatever the reason. Like it or not, Hair was fully aware with Law 42.3 which actually states:
(d) In the event of any fielder changing the condition of the ball unfairly, as set out in (b) above, the umpires after consultation shall
(i) change the ball forthwith. It shall be for the umpires to decide on the replacement ball, which shall, in their opinion, have had wear comparable with that which the previous ball had received immediately prior to the contravention
(ii) inform the batsmen that the ball has been changed.(iii) award 5 penalty runs to the batting side. See 17 below.(iv) inform the captain of the fielding side that the reason for the action was the unfair interference with the ball.
So Hair didn’t go against any cricket law. He informed to batsmen and awared 5 penalty runs to England and informed to Pakistani captain. Since umpire knew that he has no evidence and changing “surface” of the ball was not a solid evidence for a 54 overs old ball. He declared “cheated” to Pakistan which made Inzy mad. Instead of asking prove on the spot,inzy preferred to resume game which was the first and biggest blunder. The second blunder he did that he stayed in dressing room and here things do go against Hair that he didn’t consult Inzy as per law before giving any verdict against Pakistan.Later Hair declared England victorious. Our shahryar khan kept singing praises about England Team and ECB. Lets take a look at Law 21.3 about result of a match.
(b) If an umpire considers that an action by any player or players might constitute a refusal by either side to play then the umpires together shall ascertain the cause of the action. If they then decide together that this action does constitute a refusal to play by one side, they shall so inform the captain of that side. If the captain persists in the action the umpires shall award the match in accordance with (a)(ii) above.
So, if England was really with us and Pakistani team was being convinced by ECB in dressing room then England could ask his players to stay in dressing room then 21.3 was NOT applicable at all but England sent their batsmen immediately to secure their part and on other hand their manager kept showing ‘sympathy’ towards Pakistan. How soon have we forgotten East India company founders?
I will not blame Inzy at all, specially when there is issue of lack of communication due to his language. Once again Pakistan bureaucracy proved that they re inefficient to tackle such sensitive issues. Does it not reflect a minor demo of our foreign policy towards different worldly issues when we are accused of something and instead of responding properly; we either get agreed with them that yes we are guilty or we become so much emotional that we blindly take extreme decision which do appear in our favor and in favor of our Pakistani emotions but in reality they actually screw us back. Inzy who will face a 8 matches ban got fooled again by his own country men. I am just wondering about Zaheer Abbas.He was a veteran cricketer plus he writes article in papers, appeared so dumb infront of Shahryar and others that he actually OKed the lame decision of Inzy or whoever about not going in field?tsk tsk
Like it or not, Darrell was fully aware with the nature of Pakistanis, Pakistani officials and Inzimam.He knew that his few hot words can make Inzimam or his guys emotional. He kept all these things infront of him by giving a decision WITHIN law against Inzimam. Now I doubt that PCB could file case against Hair for giving false verdict against Pakistan, specially in presence of Malcom Speed, another Australian. Inzy, I feel sorry for you that you got victimized by our bureaucracy. Deal with it. This is not something new with us. Hope you will learn something after this incident.
Update: England ‘triggered ball row
Tagged:Darrell Hair,Cricket,ball tempering,Pakistan Cricket Board
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August 22nd, 2006 at 10:49 am
good post, poor inzamam who put it in his head not to take the field
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:21 am
In a way I might have to agree with you, if you follow by the book, yes Inzi ends up taking a huge hit for the simple act of forfeiting the match, but I think one has to look beyond the simple words on a rule book. Look at the feelings of a team accused of HIGH crime, in sports cheating is the ultimate crime one can get.
When innocent you yell, when guilty you hide and hope no one looks. If Pakistan had come out of the dressing room, with only having lodged a protest we all included would have suspected, someone admitted to the crime in the dressing room and they walked in to play face-save and on the side just filed a protest as-a-matter-of-fact and hope that no evidence is ever found at least on TV. I was already screaming at Inzi to protest right off the field as NONE of the cameras caught it and I knew Hair’s bias history which was even prevalent during the three test matches.
I just feel this drove in a strong message, if they had come on the field and played 30 odd overs. The issue would have been there but it could easily have been shoved under the carpet. The protest would have been heard ONLY after the completion of the 5 days. Then its history, the referee could not have summoned a hearing that night as the umpires cannot be called in to file an official report between a match only at the end of the match. So all said I think this was THE ONLY way to go.
I am sure on Friday Pakistan will be acquitted of the ball tampering issue but inzi will face the 8 match ban, then the 24 hour appeal will be held after the first one day. The dilemma which the BCCP faces is either to protest hard, and boycott the first one day as then it creates a lot of pressure on ICC, but if they play the first one day it weakens the BCCP morally as the world will say hell they could not take a stand, are they guilty or they yet again bowed down to Gora pressure. So the make or break is Saturday’s decision. If they protest I suspect the ICC will back down and withdraw the decision to ban inzi in the appeal, as they have repeatedly withdrawn their decisions like when ganguly faced a match ban or other big name countries who know how to play the tough mans game.
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:29 am
*sigh* What happened to the good old game of cricket! Informative post… I enjoyed it despite the nauseating turn of events…
I wish I could kick Hair on his big, fat behind!
August 23rd, 2006 at 3:09 am
The biggest problem here is the conflicting statements made by Shahryar Khan on why the Pakistani team refused to take the field. He said at a press conference in which he Hair was verbally scathed (quite deservingly) that the Pakistani team intended the delay to be merely a few minutes. However, when Hair and Doctrove visited the Pakistani camp after realizing that the Pakistani team hadn’t turned up to the ground, they had asked the team if they were going to come to the field, and did not receive a clear response. This would mean that the Pakistani team had intended the delay as a longer protest. This could really hurt Inzi’s case during his hearing on Friday.
As far as I know the ICC, with their irregularities and lack of assertiveness (especially during the match when Hair called it stumps and forfeited the match, after which the ICC officials convinced Inzi of returning to the ground not knowing the match had been forfeited) that Inzi is likely to face a heavy penalty. Of course, I hope he doesn’t, but what I hope even more is that Hair never gets to officiate in any international cricket game again.
By the way, nice blog you’ve got here.
August 23rd, 2006 at 10:20 am
India supports ICC:
http://wwwc4.cricinfo.com/india/content/current/story/257473.html
Not surprising.
Ray-Zor as i said thats how our beaurcracy works.Thanks for liking.qt
August 27th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Inzi should have cleared the field at the initial blame and sent the boys back to hotel. Then He, vice captain, coach, and managers should have handled the lodging of protest. The confusion of the diplomats in tne pavillion is weakening our case.
It is also becoming clear that ECB proded the empires to check for ball tampering after their disasterous first inning. I think they got used to scoring off our second tier bowlers and the first instance of a revitalized bowling line-up in the Pakistani side sent them over the edge. Pakistan should have kept the option of giving up on the onedays as an option. Let ECB take a loss for their unsportsman like behaviour.
Another serious problem arises if Inzi is banned for 8 matches, that will seriously jeopardize his participation in the champions trophy. I hope BCCP is investigating the option of arranging onedays with teams like zimbabwe, kenya, Malaysia, uae, etc. Don’t need to fiels the national team. Put a B team up as national squad and get the 8 matches done. Even paying those cricket boards to arrange the matches gets us off cheap.