I DIDN’T know a thing about the problems at the Oval until yesterday morning, when I picked up the Herald Sun and saw the story on the front page. To say I was shocked is an understatement.

I didn’t even know it was possible to forfeit a game and I just hope, for the sake of our sport, that the situation can be sorted out.

Not knowing the ins and outs makes me wary about offering too many opinions. Obviously it is disappointing that things have gone as far as they have and that a Test match has been abandoned like this for the first time in its 129-year history. But it won’t help if people start shouting their mouths off without knowing all the facts.

I don’t think Darrell Hair is a racist. I think that he tries to do the best job that he can, like any other umpire. He goes by the letter of the law and does what he thinks umpires ought to do. It is unfortunate that he has been involved in a couple of controversies in his time, but labelling him racist is unfair.

If the umpires have a problem, there are clear channels to go through and it looks as though they did it by the book. It seems amazing that the problems could not have been resolved by talking. To end a game with a team refusing to take the field seems bizarre — especially, I’d guess, to spectators.

Fortunately, I have never been involved in anything even approaching this as a captain or as a player. I hope I never am. As a rule, whatever the umpires say, you abide by and get on with the game. If there is a problem in a Test match you can log it with the match referee and let the process take its course. You know where you stand.

Pakistan must have thought they had a better way of making a complaint.

As a cricketer it seems extreme to me, but let’s see what happens. I hope things have calmed down by the time the hearings take place on Friday so that people can draw a line, move on and play the one-day series for all the fans of both sides.

I probably won’t know the outcome until next week. Tomorrow, the contracted Australia players head into the Queensland Bush on our bonding trip. All I know is that we’ll be out of contact with the outside world for about four or five days and that we’re in for some hard work. John Buchanan is keeping the rest a secret.

He has told us to take a backpack, running shoes, a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and to be ready to go at six in the morning. I’ve spoken to a few of the guys and I think we are all slightly apprehensive because we aren’t sure what will happen — even whether we will have to catch and cook our own food.

We all want to be positive and take something from it. And if the idea is to bring people closer together, it can’t be too bad — otherwise we could go the other way and start falling out. It is a big expense for Cricket Australia and John won’t have gone into it without a lot of thought.

It will be a first for me and for most of us. My slight doubt is that we are a long way from the Ashes series. The one-day players start quite soon, but for some of us the first game is three months away. Normally, I would be looking to begin my build-up around October rather than August.

If we go on to win the Champions Trophy, the Ashes, the VB Series and the World Cup, it will go down as a masterstroke. I’ve said a million times that what happened in England hurt last year, but I don’t think we can afford to build up this winter too much and too far in advance. We want to be ready when it matters.

Before then there is a championship to win with Hampshire. I will definitely be back for the Sussex game a week tomorrow. Everything is in place. I leave Australia on the 29th, drive from Gatwick to Hove on the 30th and, by my reckoning, there’ll be time for a massage, a game of poker and some sleep before the big match.

Losing on the last ball to Warwickshire was bad news. I kept in touch on the internet and via text messages to Paul Terry and Patrick Farhat, our physio. I don’t know what it was like to play in, but I was nervous just watching the scorecard changing. If we beat Sussex and Lancashire, we still have a great chance of taking the title.