Tag Cricket News

The date was 21st of August (unscrambled B'day of mine) and the day was same as today - Monday. And the Drama was something like this - Australian/English umpire Darrell Hair found something wrong with the condition of the ball used during the 4th day of 4th test of Pakistan vs England at the Oval and decided to change it. Pakistani captain Injamam-ul-haq was understandably not happy but the game continued for 16 more overs after batting English player - Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood were allowed to chose a ball of their choice...

The idea behind this article of mine is actually not to describe what happened that day, but to tell you what has come as the result of it. But I must take some of you time off to tell you what happened in between today and that day --

24th of August : There was a danger of Pakistan not playing the ODI series against England on that tour and demanded that decision on Injamam should be taken before the ODI series. But ICC knew that they can't let Injamam get away by forfeiting an International test match, thus they delayed the decision, saying that the reason was Mr. Ranjan Madugalle is not available through personal reasons.

Yesterday : There were news that "The other umpire of that Oval test" - Billy Doctrove of West Indies was not in favour of what Darrell Hair was doing and opinioned that the game should continue with the same ball so that we can find out what was the reason of scratches on the ball..

And some 15 days back :- ICC revealed that they might take the option on using "forensic test" to find out actually what was the reason of that scratch on the Oval test ball.

There was even another twist when Darrell Hair wrote a letter to ICC and offered to quit against a sum of money.

And now the decision :

=> Injamam banned for 4 ODI's with immidiate effect :
Which means that Pakistan Captain Injamam-ul-Haq won't be able to participate in the coming Champions trophy in India. The reason is that Injamam has been completely cleared of ball tampering issue and the only thing against him was that he brought the game into disrepute by not coming on the field in time. And in case Pakistan plays three Preliminary matches at the Champions Trophy, we might see Injamam missing another ODI against West Indies in November as West Indies tour of Pakistan is next for them..

Anyways, Injamam has said that he won't be taking any action against the ban and is ready to the ICC's decision.

=> Darrell Hair not to umpire in ICC champions Trophy :
There were news that BCCI has asked ICC for not including Australian Umpire Darrell Hair for the tournament and ICC has taken the decision in.
=> Darrell Hair to continue as an Umpire :
Although there were plenty of chances that Hair might quit as International umpire but Darrell said during the press conference that he intends to continue as Umpire as of now.

Being asked about what is in his future now, Hair said that he is under ICC's elite panel of Umpires but as of now, don't have any assignment to serve. So he will be at home for the while as the whole cricketing World moves into ICC Champion's trophies tune..

Okk then... only one question remains - if Injamam is cleared of ball tampering, it simply proves that Darrell made a wrong decision that day at Oval. So wasn't he guilty of taking such a harsh decision against such a reputed cricket playing nation...??