Cricket plunged into chaos

Who is to blame for Sundays disastrous occurrences that has left World Cricket blushing - Pakistan, the Umpire Darrell Hair or the ICC?

© James Endersby

Aug 21, 2006

It was the fourth day of the final five day test match between England and the visiting Pakistani's. Although England had already sealed the series after winning two of the past three tests, the fourth test at the famous Oval cricket ground in London was certainly poised for a fantastic finish. Pakistan had bowled the English out cheaply for 173 in the first innings and then amassed a colossal 504 runs in reply. The match was well set just before tea on the fourth day with England only 33 runs behind and on 298 for 4 wickets.

And then the madness began, launching a series of events that threatens to plunge the cricketing world into a state of anarchy.

Australian umpire Darrell Hair accused the Pakistani's of tampering with the ball (cheating), a very serious allegation and an accusation that struck a nerve with the Pakistani team. Hair immediately awarded England 5 penalty runs. Although television pictures showed the ball had been scuffed, there had been no evidence of any of the Pakistanis altering its state and after tea; the entire Pakistan team remained behind closed doors by way of protest.

After the umpires took the field for a second time, and with no sign of any of the Pakistani's, the umpires declared, according to the rules of the game, that they had forfeited the match, awarded the victory to England and promptly left the field

The scenes that unfolded were then somewhat comical and completely unprofessional. The International Cricket Council (ICC) are the governing body of the game of cricket, yet their failure to communicate effectively, left 23 000 paying fans and millions of people tuning in around the world on TV and radio, completely in the dark as to what was going on.

After a while, there were thumbs up from the Pakistani board members and it looked as though an agreement had been reached and play was going to resume once more. The Pakistani's then emerged from the change room and walked down to the field, yet the umpires were no where to be seen. Those watching on in amazement from the stands and at home had no clue as to what was going on; "where were the umpires?"

Ten minutes later, with no announcements, no umpires and no clue, the poor Pakistani's once again left the field and headed back to the sanity of their changing rooms.

The final conclusion to this debacle is that the ICC stuck by their umpires and backed the decision to award England the Test, after Pakistan effectively forfeited the match. To be fair, that is in accordance with the rules. The problem I'm afraid lies with the fact that there has still been no official evidence brought forward that justifies the ball tampering accusation made by Darrell Hair.

The good news is that the exciting one-day series between the two teams will still go ahead as planned. This however does not detract from the fact that the ICC needs to do some serious re-thinking. With the South Africans pulling out of the Tri-Series tournament in Sri-Lanka and now this madness at the Oval - the next few weeks will definitely be a crucial phase in the history of the sport.

Join the discussion below: Do you think Pakistan were in the right? What should be done to smooth things over? Can the sport recover?

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