Just had a brain flash, more often known in my world as a brain fart. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”? If you assume the ICC as the court, or the judge, then Pakistan are the party being tried. But without evidence, surely this incident should not have progressed to its current state so quickly? Pakistan haven’t so much been tried as convicted. Not even the BCCI are coming to their assistance and bailing them out.
I ought to point out my stance on this, or rather my own confusion. I don’t know where I stand, because no evidence has been put forth. None of the 26 cameramen saw anything but, as I said yesterday, if Darrell Hair honestly believed the ball had unlawfully altered in shape then he was perfectly in his right to call Inzamam-ul-Haq’s team to account. Pakistan, then – in my opinion – ought not to have reacted so strongly. In doing so, they almost came across as the blushing cheater at the back of the classroom. That’s at least what they might have appeared to be: guilty. But their knee-jerk reaction was inevitable and fully understandable too given Hair’s notoriously gloomy reputation in the subcontinent, and past history with Sri Lanka and others.
Hair is no fool, though. Courting controversy over eleven years is not something an umpire can do without reason. He will have known, in his gut, the storm he would provoke by making these allegations; I simply cannot believe he is the heartless dictator people are making him out to be. He’s a straight-talking bloke merely doing his job, isn’t he?
All’s fair and rosey in retrospect, of course, but it’s an interesting thought comparing this incident to the legal system. If nothing else, at least the ICC should learn from this mess. Well…we can hope
I’m not really in favour of modelling anything on one of the most inefficient and inequitable systems on the face of the earth – “the legal system”, but especially not sporting matters.
A cricket umpire does not have the luxury of trials, long considered evidence, cross-examinations etc – he must preside over the game, and quickly (there are 90 overs to be bowled you know). Darryl Hair acted appropriately, Pakistan blew it, by reacting inappropriately. There recourse had it’s place, but not by sulking in the dressing rooms.
As you say Will, Hair is no fool. He thought the ball was being tampered with, and he called it. And why shouldn’t he – the Laws of the game make provision for him to do so! The whole thing only became an issue because of the way the Pakistani team reacted.
Darrell Hair loves doing this. He came out with a book titled “Decision-Maker” in 1998.. a few years after the murali incident.. who would have bought a selfrighteously titled book like that.. hardly any one..controversy in this world translates in to cold hard cash.. lets be sure that in a few years a book will come out and will sell like hot cakes.. Umpires are not GODS.. power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.. the way in which darrell hair acted was so demeaning/humiliating/disrepectful/arrogant is what left pak with little choice but to stage the biggest protest possible.. was it the right thing to do.. no it wasn’t.. but i just wouldn’t be able to go on under such an umpire… would taufel have done this? sure if he believed that there was ball tampering going on he would but he would explain himself and that would leave no chance for inzi to protest.. darrell hair just gave the verdict like it came from god… that is what was upsetting.. no other umpire would have done things the way hair did… even if taufel saw clear evidence.. he would have handled it much much better.. or shep or aleem darr… darrell hair did do it within the laws but he can’t hide behind the laws.. there’s also common sense.. but he seems to love going for controversies while protecting himself behind the laws.. and icc has a rule of siding with the umpire no matter how he acts as long as he can hide behind saying.. oh i just followed the laws.. that is why we need to change the laws… other umpires use the laws with common sense.. what stops hair from using his opinion about ball tampering and giving pak another 5 run penaly in every match from now on?? nothing? after the match he will say it was my judgement.. Darrell Hair should have had the sense to make this decision on evidence and if he had done it.. not even tv evidence.. all he should have done is noticed somebody do it.. and then just say it…i.e. xyz player did it.. and then pak would have to take that.. he further flamed the controversy by giving no explanation then and even not now.. what is he waiting for christmas? he doesn’t have to give an explanation according to the laws.. so there you go.. and he wants this controversy to grow as big as it can so he can sell more books.. hmmm… more cash and fame for GOD i.e. darrell hair.
Hmmm – an umpire “hiding” behing the “LAWS OF CRICKET” – imagine that?!?!
If he were to make up his own laws, would that be better? Perhaps from now on, whenever the opposition appeal, Darrell Hair should discuss things with Inzi first, just to make sure he is not offended and that it is okay for him to make a decision.
Unless he’s refereeing baseball, I think the LAWS OF CRICKET are a pretty good place to start, when making an adjudication. Perhaps the Pakistani players could stroll passed a rule book occasionally.
I agree with Stu. Innocent until proven guilty applies in (most) legal systems because it is considered preferable to allow occasional guilty parties to escape punishment than to convict an innocent person. Well, that’s fine for criminal law, but this is sport. It’s a game. It’d be great to have nothing but correct decisions all the time, but that’s not going to happen, and making the processes more drawn out and complex and open to appeal will only make the situation worse. There is no innocence or guilt, there is only the umpire’s decision. Get on with the game.
The thing that interests me most about this issue is how grey some of the laws and their interpretation can become.
We seem to understand that umpires make mistakes if some-one is out caught behind, when replays may show the batsman didn’t hit it. However no-one would consider the fielding sides cheats for appealing. Similarly no-one accuses a batsman of cheating for not walking if he believes he wasn’t out.
In this case however the umpire has not only accused the fielding team of cheating, but judged them to have cheated.
This is a big call to make based solely on the condition of the ball (and according to some reports today – a visit to the match officials by the English coach).
Just about every umpire I have heard interviewed on the subject says that there is host of reasons for the ball getting into the condition it is, and you really need to have seen something happen or be alerted to a problem by the match officials viewing video to make this sort of decision.
The five runs and ball change are nothing compared to the accusation
Get rid of Darrel Hair then we can truly ‘get on with it’, i’m sick of people defending him.
Last year did anyone go into legal contortions over the fact that England could reverse swing it and Australia couldn’t, i don’t think so; there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy here.
The problem is that cricket rests precariously on the principle that the sole arbiter of what happens on the field is the umpire. He is judge, jury and executioner and it can’t really happen any other way.
Now I don’t know Darrell (I know Billy Doctrove doesn’t look like any kind of umpire I’ve ever seen – bit of basic doubt about what to do when a batsman hits the ball and a fielder catches it suggests he might have missed day 1 at umpire school…if not year 1) but all the word seems to suggest he’s a bit arrogant(Billy Bowden is of cousre a shrinking violet) and thinks the game revolves around him. For different reasons he has pissed off Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan and I believe South Africa aren’t wild on him – they can’t all be wrong.
But anyone who has played league cricket will know that a fair proportion of umpires are pedantic little tossers with nothing better to do on Saturday than be officious and small-minded – while others are perfectly OK.
You have someone in absolute control that a growing minority do not trust. So after this has all blown over and the ICC (if they have any sense)have backed Darrell to the hilt if he has followed procedure (pedantically or not) – they can ditch him in about 18 months. He has already been axed from the panel of elite umpires once before. And I would stress this is more about the ability to run the game than any proven right and wrong.
Maybe they will send him to umpire Bangladesh v Zimbabwe – with Billy Doctrove with any luck. Nothing personal, Billy’s just not very good.
However if they start to compromise the absolute power of the umpire, we are in for a really bad time.
Surely the cricket equivalent of “innocent till proven guily” is that the benefit of the doubt must go to the batting team. If the umpire even suspects that the ball has changed condition but not due to normal use he must have it changed. To do otherwise is to break a fundamental tennant of the game and give the benefit of the doubt and the advantage to the bowling side..
And if the ball is not unfit for play (as this ball presumably wasn’t), then the umpire has no option but to swap the ball under the “changing condition of the ball” section of the laws with it’s assosiated penalty runs. Exactly as was done here. I’m suprised it doesn’t happen more often.
Just finished watching the recording of the Stanford 20/20 finals between Guyana & Trinadad/Tobago. What a classic backed by a wonderful atmosphere even though one can argue it’s not cricket (Thankfully!!).
Any chance of Mr. Stanford becoming the President of the ICC? He comes across as a humble, pragmatic and sensible person with a very clear vision for the game, unlike the morons who run the ICC!
Something has been bothering me since this all happened.
People keep saying that Sky had millions of cameras, and not even the little one on the back of the most junior cameraman’s mobile phone have picked up any evidence of tampering. (Ok I may be paraphrasing)
I have a couple of problems with this as a defence.
Firstly, the umpires are not there to make their decision based on tv footage. They make their decision based on what they see with their own eyes. If there is tv evidence to back that up great, if there isn’t, it doesn’t matter.
Secondly, there isn’t a tv camera trained on every player at every second of the match. Some of the cameras mentioned would not stand a chance of picking anything up anyway, for example the ones trained on the lines, the one on the blimp, the stump cameras, etc, so the number of cameras quoted as not finding anything is irrelevant. I’m sure the CCTV cameras covering the entrance to the ground didn’t pick anything up either, but are they relevant?
Thirdly, tv companies go to ad breaks between overs, and between balls show replays or the batsmen or whatever – my point being they generally don’t follow the ball when it is dead. When the ball is dead, the interest is generally in the players, or previous action.
There is of course a chance of them picking something up in the course of their coverage, however it is not guaranteed. Perhaps if they were specifically looking for ball tampering they would have a better chance.
I’m sure sky will have gone back through their footage looking to see if they could see anything, but as they weren’t looking for it in the first place, there’s every chance they wont find anything, even if it was there (which of course, it may not have been).
Regardless, I return to my first point, tv evidence is not required here. According to the laws, the only evidence required is an abnormal change in the condition of the ball.
As a pedant with no life, i.e. an umpire (qualified under both English and Asian systems, incidentally), I have to say that ’simply wondered’ is spot on! The guff that has been talked about the need for the umpires to consult with the players (even the captains) is absolute garbage. A good umpire should be able, and willing, to communicate with players, but this notion that he needs to have a little chat with them before making up his mind (or joint minds) is pernicious. Imagine what tricks players would get up to in these kind of circumstances. An umpire, like it or not, is an adjudicator – a judge – and just like a High Court Judge, no one’s going to respect him if he gets all chummy with counsel, witnesses, plaintiff and defendant – let alone journalists. Where I umpire, around 70% of players are from the subcontinent (the majority are from Pakistan) – and 50% of umpires are subcontinental too. From the Aussie umpires I’ve met on courses, one thing I’ve noticed is that they umpire very few inter-cultural games of the type we get here every week, and there is a tendency to see things very narrowly. There’s greater tolerance for “sledging” in Australia, while we have to be much more proactive about enforcing the Spirit of Cricket’s directive that there should be no abuse. I’ve been invited on the last three occasions to be MC at the largest subcont club annual awards dinner; it’s small steps like this that help human beings from different backgrounds to overcome suspicions. It’s a pity that this kind of thing doesn’t seem to happen at Test level, where often young kids are plucked off the streets of Rawalpindi and Lahore, and then, if things like this happen, get pretty entrenched views about whites.
Simon Hughes explains a bit about ball tampering here in the Telegraph. It has some pictures of an obviously over-tampered-with ball, but the pictures explain enough what the quarter-seam is.
Can you believe it, in the last few days in all the mess we haven’t heard a certain word starting in A and ending in shes!!! Nor Captaincy, nor Flintoff, nor injuries…….
As far as I’m concerned I think we should all sit back and wait for some more facts to surface rather than constant speculation.
I know what a quarter seam is, i am just not up on the physics of what could possibly lift it, and frankly i defy anybody to coclusively tell me, and even if i was given a picture of Inzy with a set of long nosed pliers, i would still be calling for Hairs Head; for me the issue goes way beyond ball tampering.
Amazing how white countries run the game and when they are caught red handed get fined puny amounts.
Atherton gets caught with TV evidence and gets fined a small amount of money.
Inzaman has no evidence against him, and at first Hair won’t even show him the ball, there is no TV evidence but the ICC throws the book at him.
The problem is the white countries still treat other countries as colonies.
If Hair was so correct why did the ICC spend until 9:20pm trying to get him to reverse his decision!
If Hair is so sure then let him come out and say they tampered with the ball and face the consequences of a law suit. He says he calls it then do it and not hide nehind the laws of cricket.
How come Fletcher can talk to officials on the quiet and there is not even a murmur. Why isn’t he up on charges?
Come on this whole thing stinks. 26 cameras pick up nothing but Hair does, doesn’t add up.
As detailed here, the actual punishment if found guilty of the ball tampering is pretty small considering the seriousness of the accusation. For the record, Atherton was fined £2000 for the dirt-in-the-pocket affair and the whole story is recounted here. I don’t know what Inzi’s match fee is, but can’t imagine its disproportionate in today’s money. TV evidence is only relevant if the umpires missed the incident in the first place.
It is the disrepute charge for the manner of the protest that could and should attract a much larger punishment. These are 2 separate charges on 2 separate issues.
Hair *has* come out and said they tampered with the ball – that’s why there’s a charge of ball tampering. The decision reversal discussions would have been relating to the forfeit of the game, not of the ball tampering. He is not hiding behind the laws of cricket – as Stu pointed out earlier in this thread, what else should a cricket umpire do?
Fletcher is guilty of nothing else other than talking to someone. Of what, we don’t know. What charges would you suggest?
Ball tampering IS the issue, anything else is not. If you want to make it so, you got to provide PROOF of racism, bias or other attitudes. As the only evidence is the decisions made against the sub continent countries then effectively its all conjecture, and therefore inadmissable.
And I don’t know WHY DH is getting all the flak, if the other umpire disagreed, then it wouldn’t have been pursued. Villify Doctrove as well, out of some equality.
The ICC were more concerned with the fact that the ECB would lose money over it. When DH stood by his decision, they had to back him. Plus I think he made a statement in the last 24 hours saying that he stands by his decision.
He can’t name anyone but the evidence, which is the ball, says its condition was altered. Thats why Inzamam was charged with breaching Law 1.4:
Responsibility of captains
The captains are responsible at all times for ensuring that play is conducted within the spirit and traditions of the game as well as within the Laws.
As DH could prove WHO did it, the responsibility devolved to Inzamam for not ensuring his players were doing so.
The complaint is that the Pak team were found guilty with no evidence, and now Hair has been found guilty of pretty much the entire lexicon of imperialist crime (racism, bias, pride, prejudice) – I wonder if he has any slave girls in his cellar.
Seems to me that kicking it all into the long grass (as has now happened by default) is the best thing until after the ODIs.
The best thing about this is that England are (thankfully) not centrally involved.
Must dash – off to talk to the girlfriend about ball tampering and why it’s a good thing.
I’m mightily impressed by all these people who know Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove inside out. Are you all Psychiatric experts in pathological personalites? Have you all access to some in-depth personality analysis and clinical interviews? Or were you raised as identical twins for most of your lives?
It seems to my biased perspective that half of these comments try to take a rational perspective based on fair observations and logical arguments, and the other half are predominantly concerned with emotive and hysterical character assasination, generalising from specific incidents to make conclusions about an absolute and extreme personality dysfunction.
I think Darrell Hair was well within his rights to call Pakistan for ball tampering BUT I think his attitude towards the whole scenario was attrocious. He could have handled it so much better… and given Pakistan a clear explanation instead of being such a cock, i think THIS is the reason why pakistan were so angry.
How is anyone presuming Pakistan are guilty? From what i’ve seen everyone thinks they’re innocent and Hair is the bad guy.
Hair had evidence enough to call ball tampering, whether the evidence suggested ball tampering is another matter.
And to those who say Hair should have warned them, what good would that have done? He’s still accusing Pakistan of cheating which what all the fuss is about.
As I may have mentioned, I haven’t much time online, so I can’t read all the responses above. But as a law student, I feel I ought to comment
The problem with innocent until proven guilty in sport, as I’m sure I’m alone in noting, is that the consequences are very much immediate of any decision that is taken. It may appear to be more sensitive to simply deem the ball intolerable for use and have it swapped, by the umpires and not the batsmen, with the suspicious object to receive futher attention post match. But the laws of cricket require that when cheating is found that the batsmen change the ball and 5 runs are awarded to their score. What if, as a consequence of ’sensitive action’, England had lost three wickets to a selected ball that had reverse swung, but a timely fourth century from Ian Bell had placed them in a good enough position to take the action to the final over of the fifth day. England lose on the penultimate ball of play. What a difference those five runs would have made…
Of course, this is all conjecture – especially my highly objective namedrop of England’s Warwickshire member – but I hope it demonstrates my point. It is the ICC who make the rules, the member countries that agree to them, and the member countries who must use the ICC’s methods to resolve them. This is a situation not unlike those in which Parliamentary members mutter about law-making judges. Judges do not make law, they interpret what they have. If they interpret them in a way that is not desirable, then it is for Parliament to relegislate, and their fault for doing so ambiguously (or, in the ICC’s case, a little too clearly) in the past.
Will – thanks for your email! Wholly unnecessarily, of course, but I’ll get back to you properly when I get home tomorrow. I’ll need to dig out the postcode of University digs…
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