Cheating at the TEST?

[Tooting Gull]

The things is, Darrell Hair has a lot of previous with Pakistan. And Sri Lanka with Murali as well. Many of them feel he is racist, rather than incompetent.

Clearly that's never going to be proved or probably even discussed, but given the sensitivities maybe he blundered in a bit. Surely if you're going to accuse a team of cheating, you have to have seen the incident, or have a very good idea of when it happened. Otherwise it's chaos.

I suspect he will be pressured to back down by the ICC to let the game go ahead. He won't. Then they may try and say he was in the wrong, so if he won't play ball they'll replace him. That will trigger a load of shit about backing for umpires, and I doubt any of his collegaues would agree to replace him.

Separately, Pakistan should be heavily fined for their actions, regardless of how right/wrong Hair was.

 

[Gazwag]

England win

Just announced

 

[Basil Fawlty]

England win

Just announced

 

[Beach Hut]

England win

Just announced

Hardly a great victory - all the wrong reasons but England hardly contributed to this.

Pakistan keen to make a point or three or do we blame Darrell Hair ?

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

England win

Just announced

I don't think it's a thing we should be cheering, to be honest. Call me a bit of a purist, but I think this is a bad day for cricket.

 

[Beach Hut]

I don't think it's a thing we should be cheering, to be honest. Call me a bit of a purist, but I think this is a bad day for cricket.

Dreadful day for cricket IMHO, very sad

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

I'd be interested to see whether Darrell Hair ever umpires a Test match again.

 

[Beach Hut]

I'd be interested to see whether Darrell Hair ever umpires a Test match again.

Have to say there appears to be no actual video evidence of ball tampering.

 

[Basil Fawlty]

This is very sad, Darrell Hair must be up for some kind of hearing.

 

[Beach Hut]

This is very sad, Darrell Hair must be up for some kind of hearing.

From



to sad

 

[Basil Fawlty]

From



to sad

I'm happy we won three-nil, but not in these circumstances I aint.

 

[Tooting Gull]

It's a very bizarre situation in the sense that in a way, you have to applaud the ICC for backing the umpire, from the moment Pakistan refused to take the field he has applied the letter of the law. He warned them what would happen if they did not immediately return, they called his bluff and lost.

But the original decision which sparked the walk-off looks hasty, if not actually wrong.

 

[Mr Burns]

Dreadful day for cricket IMHO, very sad

Totally agree.

Even worse day for my betting account, as I lumped on Pakistan and the draw as soon as it became obvious what was happening. I didn't lose much, but stood to win a couple of tonne as the odds went crazy for a while on betfair.

Shame I was to late to get 50-1+ on England. Top I saw was 5-1 and that lasted about 5 seconds before crashing to 1-3.

Someone's made a killing today at the bookies.

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

It's a very bizarre situation in the sense that in a way, you have to applaud the ICC for backing the umpire, from the moment Pakistan refused to take the field he has applied the letter of the law. He warned them what would happen if they did not immediately return, they called his bluff and lost.

But the original decision which sparked the walk-off looks hasty, if not actually wrong.

What he said. The umpires were absolutely right to award the match to England; the ICC were absolutely right to back the umpires (the match referee Mike Procter could have changed the umps and carried on, apparently, which would have led to an enormous crisis with new precendents being set all over the place -- could have destroyed Test cricket I reckon)

Anyway; what may have been questionable was the umps' decision to award five runs to England. If Pakistan appeal, and their appeal is upheld by the ICC, then Hair (and possibly Doctrove) are toast.

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Simple point. Why is it always Pakistan WHOEVER they play? Point two. James Kirtley a chucker.do me a favour. Yet Chucker Murlli is allowed to bowl on.

 

[Beach Hut]

There is always a recurring theme with either Pakistan, Sri Lanka or India whinging but such is life.

 

[Bry Nylon]

"Something interesting happens at cricket match shocker"

 

[humpy]

the one thing that no-one has seemed to ask is what do pakistan achieve by cheating in a series already lost. for my money the allegation is complete bollocks and had that been england we would all be applauding the stance that pakistan have taken. Hare in my opinion has always been a shit umpire and this just reinforces it, where is the proof that the ball was tampered with as there are only about twenty cameras or so following every move and not one caught anybody doing anything illegal. Bad day for test cricket.

 

[Phil B]

Under law 42.3 of the International Cricket Council’s playing conditions, the umpires should award five runs to the batting side and change the ball when they think it has been interfered with.

Note the phrase "change the ball when they think it has been interfered with".

Doesn't say anything about proving it. If you are umpiring the game and you find gouges appear on the ball for no apparent reason then you go by the letter of the law. That's exactly what they did.

As for Hairs' bust up with Muralitharan, he was actually correct when he called him for no balling in Test Matches. The authorities changed the rules concerning the "bent" arm so it went from 5 degrees up to 15! When he called no-ball, he was correctly enforcing the rule at that time.

No doubt it will be "Hair today and gone tomorrow" ....

I'll get my coat.

 

[Crawley Cobbler]

Pakistan's bowling coach is Waqar Younis.

The evidence mounts up.