Cricket desperately needs a voice of reason before it sinks deeper into quicksand, into a lethal mix of emotion, pride, honour, neither of which is much good in law. There is only one issue that confronts Pakistan, the ICC and Darrell Hair and that is whether or not Pakistan wilfully tampered with the cricket ball in the fourth Test against England. And as far as I know the on-field judge has passed his verdict and the appeal has not yet been heard. Everything else skirts the issue and dare I say, everything else weakens Pakistan’s case greatly.They now have a lawyer who says they have a good case. He must. Would you be surprised if the same lawyer said exactly the same thing to the ICC on exactly the same issue? Cricket has long been governed by a set of laws but teams have been expected to conform to (though no one consistently does!) convention and tradition as well. Necessarily therefore, the governance has been loose, anybody could find loopholes in it. Even today the umpire needs offer no evidence in an lbw decision. Can you imagine a fine lawyer deliciously digging his teeth into the quality of evidence the umpire analysed before deciding a player was out lbw?All sport requires instant on-field decision making and no game can survive unless the decision maker has full power to make those decisions. Decisions can be flawed, that is the inherent nature of instant, unscripted drama. If we started bringing lawyers into on-field decision making, sport would die an instant death. Indeed, one of the reasons sport is such a great builder of character is that it teaches you to come face to face with adversity. And that includes on-field jurisdiction. That cannot change.I know we all speak with the benefit of hindsight but it would have been so simple for Pakistan to play on, win the match and, since they are so certain of their honesty, win their appeal as well. They would have won a cricket match and they would have won the moral high ground. There can be no more resounding victory than honour questioned and vindicated. But Pakistan chose to sit out and I’m afraid that was a huge failure of management. They needed a calm, shrewd mind in the dressing room and they were let down. The captain has to bear the brunt for that, but so must the manager. Now, even if they win the ball-tampering issue, they stand to lose much more for their subsequent action. Inzamam might even have to miss the Champion’s Trophy and that would be a shame.By all accounts Inzamam is one of the game’s nice guys. He looks relaxed, at peace with the world, is respected and is one of the better batsmen the game has seen. Some of those are fine qualities for a leader but there are others too. A leader has to see the larger picture, has to be completely conversant with the laws, he has to keep his head while all others are losing theirs. He cannot get carried away. When the dust settles on this one, Pakistan will have to find another leader and leave Inzamam alone to charm the world with the quality of his batting.In terms of likeability Darrell Hair is at the other end of the scale. In our part of the world we don’t like him at all and we need to be careful while offering reasons for it. I have heard the word ‘racism’ come into it and that is sad. We use it too lightly, it is our first shelter now. But even racism has to bow to achievement and the more we achieve in our part of the world, the less relevant racism will become. That doesn’t mean Hair’s attitude is acceptable. He is domineering, rude and uses his authority like it were a fly-swatter. Rather than saying “lets not get there” he is liable to say “if you get there this is what I will do to you.” An umpire cannot be a tyrant. The law makes him witness, policeman and judge and that is a rare combination that good men wear lightly. An umpire, like a good doctor, needs to calm people not provoke them and Hair is provocative. Maybe the ICC needs to have an Umpires Code of Conduct like it has one for the players!!But is that good enough reason to condemn him in this case? We haven’t seen the ball, no journalist has, no columnist has. If Hair is indeed wrong, he will be condemned but what if he is right? I think we need to hold our judgement till a verdict is arrived at.And I think international sportsmen should spare us the “honour” bit. One of the most disquieting things about sport in recent times is the realisation that virtually everybody cheats. The World Cup of football was full of it and I know of no cricket team in the world that doesn’t go up in appeal in a wonderfully convincing manner when they know a batsman isn’t out. If that isn’t cheating, then nothing is. Sportsmen abuse each other, their families, their culture, their religion and no dictionary includes that alongside the word “honour”. If you cheat, you have no honour to defend.The earlier we get on with the game the better it will be for everybody. A protest has been made, a protest will be heard and till it is resolved let us re-discover the great joy of bat on ball.
