I don’t regret walking out of the Oval Test, says Inzamam

The Oval Test played in August 2006 went down in history as the first test to be forfeited after Darrel Hair and fellow umpire Billy Doctrove awarded the match to England after Pakistan failed to come out on time after the tea break before which Hair had penalised Inzamam and his men for ball tampering.

“Even the ICC match referee adjudicator, Ranjan Madugalle who is an experienced referee said later at the hearing that Hair had acted in haste and he didn’t use his authority properly,” Inzamam said.

Hair was later suspended from umpiring Test and international matches by the ICC but earlier this year he was reinstated again, a decision which didn’t go down well with Inzamam. Hair, however, recently announced he was retiring from umpiring international matches.

Inzamam made it clear that no matter what people said he took the right decision and he had the support of the players.

“I will say again if this incident was to happen again I would do the same thing. Hair called us cheats and the ICC adjudicator later cleared us of the same charge.”

He said he was happy that the ICC recently reversed the result of the Oval test to a draw from a win for England but said it didn’t really matter much to him.

“At times national honour is more important than victories or defeats. In that match I stood up for Pakistan cricket,” he said.

Inzamam also revealed that it was a combination of circumstances, death of coach Bob Woolmer and the subsequent loss of passion in cricket that led him to announce his retirement during the 2007 ODI World Cup.

“Certainly the board didn’t support us at that time and afterwards in the aftermath of Woolmer’s death. I and the other players were disheartened. We expected more support from our board,” Inzamam said.

“I didn’t leave the captaincy specifically because of our defeat to Ireland but yes it was heart breaking for me and Bob as both of us had in the last two years worked towards one aim to do well in the World Cup. And when Woolmer died the passion for the game just went out and I decided I didn’t want to be captain anymore,” he recalled.

Inzamam who played 120 tests and 378 one-day internationals in his illustrious career also slammed out at the umpires referral system recently experimented with in the India and Sri Lanka test series.

“I don’t want to see this become a permanent feature because it breaks the momentum of the match. The charm of cricket is that you go by the umpires decisions and you expect mistakes since they are human beings.”