Chaos at The Oval

[matt674]

In a bizarre way I find it quite exhilarating to watch sporting chaos unfold before my eyes...I'm thinking the Indy Formula 1 Gp for example

today was another...an over officious umpire spots ball tampering and give England 5 runs and orders a ball change. No warning to the offenders

The Pakistanis are offended, protest innocence and then it all kicks off with boycotts, the umpires awarding the match to England from a losing position and now recriminations all round

Corking stuff! Nothing like a good sporting drama

hardly over officious, cheating is cheating.

But upto now there has been no proof and by accepting the umpires decision to have 5 runs deducted from their score the Pakistani team would be admitting to cheating.

If they are innocent then maybe its the rules that need looking into - i have watched many reports this morning and none of them actually mention how the umpires thought the ball had been tampered with.

[Jon MW]

In a bizarre way I find it quite exhilarating to watch sporting chaos unfold before my eyes...I'm thinking the Indy Formula 1 Gp for example

today was another...an over officious umpire spots ball tampering and give England 5 runs and orders a ball change. No warning to the offenders

The Pakistanis are offended, protest innocence and then it all kicks off with boycotts, the umpires awarding the match to England from a losing position and now recriminations all round

Corking stuff! Nothing like a good sporting drama

hardly over officious, cheating is cheating.

But upto now there has been no proof and by accepting the umpires decision to have 5 runs deducted from their score the Pakistani team would be admitting to cheating.

If they are innocent then maybe its the rules that need looking into - i have watched many reports this morning and none of them actually mention how the umpires thought the ball had been tampered with.

The captain should have verbally registered a protest of innocence, and at the end of the match they should have lodged a complaint.

In football if a player gets sent off for handball in the first half, the ref awards the opposing team a penalty which they convert and nobody else scores until half time -- would you see the team refusing to come out for the second half?

Of course you wouldn't, they know they've still got a chance of salvaging something, they know they can't dictate to the referee how the game should be run during the game (although they may try) and they know they can complain afterwards.

If Pakistan wanted to make a dramatic gesture they should have walked off immediately and left the grounds, instead they decided to try a disruptive protest which left people in doubt with Pakistan still wanting to win the test. If they had deliberately chosen to forfeit the game and show that the accusation of cheating was more important than winning the game then this would have achieved a much better public relations exercise than what they did and they would have got more supporters and sympathisers for taking a stand.

[Indestructable]

Can you imagine if England had done this. To have the chance of winning the game and then refusing to play. What ever the rights and wrongs they have been badly advised and ended up looking like a bunch of cry baby's.
I agree with the comparison to football. If a player is accused of cheating eg diving and is sent off, the team can't refuse to play. If they did they would be severely punished.

[Rod Paradise]

Can you imagine if England had done this. To have the chance of winning the game and then refusing to play. What ever the rights and wrongs they have been badly advised and ended up looking like a bunch of cry baby's.
I agree with the comparison to football. If a player is accused of cheating eg diving and is sent off, the team can't refuse to play. If they did they would be severely punished.

Did England not get close to doing the same in Pakistan when Gatting lost the plot?

Unfortunately the latest tour by Pakistan has seen some decidedly ropy decisions from umpires (according to a Pakistani mate of mine, the ones he drew my attention to on the TV were pretty obvious certainly), I think the tampering accusation has been the final straw. It's time the umpires were from another country.

[TightEnd]

LOL, all ICC umpires are from neutral countries and there is a panel of 9 "elite" names

Hair is Australian,
Doctrove, West Indian
Taufel, Australian
Bowden, New Zealander etc

this panel was introduced because of the woefully poor standard of umpires on the Asian sub continent in particular Pakistan about ten years ago!


As for decisions, yes there have been some poor ones this series..mostly by Doctrove an out of his depth new umpire. These were poor decisions for both sides!

[Rod Paradise]

LOL, all ICC umpires are from neutral countries and there is a panel of 9 "elite" names

Hair is Australian,
Doctrove, West Indian
Taufel, Australian
Bowden, New Zealander etc

this panel was introduced because of the woefully poor standard of umpires on the Asian sub continent in particular Pakistan about ten years ago!


As for decisions, yes there have been some poor ones this series..mostly by Doctrove an out of his depth new umpire. These were poor decisions for both sides!

Cheers Tighty - I found out the umpire was an Aussie at lunchtime. 

I'm mainly repeating what I hear from Naz (when I can be bothered listening to him talk about the non-sport that is cricket ). There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence that Hair was right at the moment though.

As for bad decisions, I said I was repeating Naz's view & that some of the ones he shouted about & I saw on the TV were shockers. You'll have seen a lot more than me.