South Africa are fed up and want to quit Pakistan, and not over bomb blasts in far off Karachi but what they feel is the ‘‘lying, cheating and discrimination’’ by Pakistan officials who are said to have deliberately misled the International Cricket Council and led to the banning of Andrew Hall and Graeme Smith. All-rounder Hall has packed his bags and is heading for home after being banned for the remaining matches of the tour of Pakistan. This was after the ICC appointed judge, Sir Oliver Popplewell, today rejected his appeal against the decision made by match referee Clive Lloyd. As it is, anger within the ranks of the South African team has been such that the side wanted to boycott Sunday’s final game in the Pepsi Cup series against Pakistan in Rawalpindi, which South Africa went on to win by seven wickets. Tempers within the side have been at boiling point since Lloyd on Saturday slapped a three match ban on Hall for an incident involving the Safs all-rounder. It appears that Hall was provoked by comments made by Pakistan stand-in captain Yousuf Youhana who used derogatory language when referring to one of the player’s relatives. It is understood from sources close to the team that Australian umpire Darrel Harper had told match referee Lloyd that Hall had been provoked into making his comments. Smith’s banning was as a reaction to his comments to Youhana, who accused the South African captain of being abusive in Afrikaans. How Youhana can qualify this would be interesting, but more serious is the fate of a tour which was first blitzed by bombs going off in Karachi over what was little more than a family squabble, blighted by political and diplomatic manhandling, and smoothed over by the good sense of United Cricket Board’s chief executive Gerald Majola. The thought of the Safs pulling out of the tour in protest would have placed yet again, a serious question mark against Pakistan’s ability to host high-profile tours. It is unclear whether Majola threatened to bring the team home unless the PCB clean up its act and the sycophantic way in which their CEO, Rameez Raja, addressed the players, officials and the crowd on Sunday suggests that some hard words had been said. Popplewell, a right-hand batsman for Cambridge University between 1949 and 1951 and ICC Code of Conduct Commission member, viewed the video incident several times. Whether Lloyd passed on Hair’s comments in his report that Hall had been provoked is another matter.
