THE ICC’s decision to postpone the hearing in London tomorrow to try Inzamam-ul-Haq for bringing the game into disrepute at least removes the threat of any Pakistan boycott of the Twenty20 international in Bristol on Monday and the five 50-over internationals against England that follow.
The serious illness of a close relative of Ranjan Madugalle, the ICC’s chief referee, who had been asked to chair the hearing, gives more time for tempers to cool and for the ICC to consider the price the sport might pay for putting a rigid application of law and order ahead of common sense and a little drop of the gentle dew from heaven.
In pounds and pence, the price might still run into millions. In disruption to the international game after a period of relative harmony, the wrong outcome of the hearing could be ruinous. A breakaway by one or more Asian countries from the ICC remains possible, but only if the governing body fails to use some foresight.
With a bit of statesmanship, it should be possible to make it plain to the Pakistan captain that he acted foolishly and that standing on national dignity is no excuse for a cavalier disregard for cricket’s laws and rules, without exacerbating the crisis unnecessarily and without any loss of dignity or appearance of weakness on the ICC’s behalf.
Of necessity, this will require some humility, which may not come easily, but, whether explicitly or implicitly, the hearing has to take place as soon as possible and in full realisation of the governing body’s responsibility for what happened at the Brit Oval on Sunday.
Darrell Hair should not have been umpiring in the series. He has many virtues, but he also has well-aired faults and the indignation aroused by his control of the Faisalabad Test last November meant that to appoint him to stand in the last two Tests in England was inviting trouble.
That the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had failed to lodge its objection to Hair in writing to the ICC, despite being invited to do so, was careless and inefficient, but that the invitation to write was made proves that the ICC was aware of the problem. Acceding to Pakistan’s wishes would have been a sign of wisdom, not weakness, on the part of Dave Richardson’s cricket department in Dubai.
If anyone wants examples of real ICC weakness, they might look to the blind adherence to its rulebook over cricket relations with Zimbabwe and to the original appeasement of Asian interests by accepting Bangladesh as a full member. It would be an extraordinary irony if an Asian breakaway resulted from a sudden compulsion to make an example of Pakistan, no matter how strong the grounds for doing so.
There is a case against Inzamam, to be sure. He has previous form, for a start. Early last year he was fined 100 per cent of his match fee and given a final warning for presiding over an unacceptably slow over-rate in a one-day international against West Indies in Australia. Three times during Pakistan’s visit to India three months later he was up before the same referee, Chris Broad, the poacher turned gamekeeper. In quick succession, Inzamam was fined for dissent, given a one-Test ban for advancing on the umpire in an overbearing appeal and severely reprimanded for “abuse of equipment, clothing, ground equipment, fixtures or fittings”.
Still waters run deep and it is true that Inzamam is not quite the benign innocent that he appears to be. On Sunday he, as captain, had to be held responsible, in the absence of any evidence against a bowler, for the alleged illegal interference with the ball. By subsequently failing to lead his team back on to the field on time, he then badly misjudged what he could get away with by way of protest against the insult to his team. He has, however, had his punishment for both of his crimes and this is what Madugalle must have foremost in his mind when the hearing takes place.
The award to England of five penalty runs was not in itself significant in the context of the match, although in other circumstances it might have been. The fact that England were allowed to choose the replacement ball was a considerable disadvantage to Pakistan, who had worked on it, as most professional teams do these days, to get it to the point where it had started to reverse swing.
That the batting team had the choice of a replacement ball was a feature of the playing conditions for the series agreed by both teams. It differs from Law 42 itself, which states that if the condition of the ball has been altered unfairly the umpires will choose its replacement by a ball that has had the same degree of wear as the original before the infringement.
It is possible that Hair and Billy Doctrove were right in believing that, despite no corroborative television evidence, there had been illegal scratching by an errant fingernail. One of the tricks, used even in county cricket, is for a bowler or fielder to polish one side of the ball vigorously — and publicly — on his trousers (perhaps after the application of saliva enriched by a sugary sweet to enhance the shine) while at the same time scratching or lifting the quarter-seam on the other side of the ball with the thumb. It happens — Hair knows it happens — and it might have happened this time.
If, as has been alleged but denied, it was the England team, through Duncan Fletcher, the coach, who alerted the referee to the possibility that ball-tampering was being attempted earlier in the match, it is worth remembering that the reverse swing in this series was a good deal less potent than it was for the England bowlers against Australia in 2005. There was never a suggestion then that Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones were using artificial means to assist the skill taught them by Troy Cooley, the Australian, but in this case Pakistan, whether guilty or not, were punished — in the circumstances, sufficiently — by the action the umpires took.
Whether the dressing-room sit-in that followed was the only reason for bringing the game into disrepute on Sunday afternoon is a matter of even greater doubt. Even if one does not take into account the ICC’s provocative umpiring appointment, Inzamam had no shortage of advisers from the moment he left the field at 3.40 for the early tea interval and, having reacted with dignity when the run penalty was applied and the ball changed, he cannot now fairly be held solely responsible for the protest, captain though he is and foolish though the disregard for the umpires’ authority was.
The summary loss of an important match that Pakistan had a favourite’s chance of winning, under a sanction in the laws that had never previously been applied in a Test, should be punishment enough.
SPEED FLIES IN FOR DISCUSSIONS
THE ICC is expected to fly Malcolm Speed, the chief executive, from its headquarters in Dubai to London to help to find a resolution to the ball-tampering dispute.
After a day of high-level meetings yesterday, the Twenty20 international in Bristol on Monday and the five one-day internationals are expected to go ahead.
There had been fears that Pakistan would not want to continue the tour if Inzamam-ul-Haq was banned, but his hearing was postponed yesterday. The players practised at Lord’s yesterday in preparation for today’s one-day warm-up match against Middlesex.
The ICC says that the hearing is unlikely to be rescheduled before the tour is over.
Reports from Pakistan suggested that they wanted another match referee, such as Clive Lloyd, the former West Indies captain, to conduct the hearing so that it could go ahead as soon as possible, but Speed said yesterday that Ranjan Madugalle is the “most appropriate person to adjudicate in this matter”.
PAT GIBSON
