Cricket may these days be played by professionals but it is clearly not run professionally. The sport became a farce yesterday when spectators at The Oval and viewers around the world were completely bemused by events that will surely mark the day as one of the saddest and most shameful in the history of a great game. Whatever the merits of the allegation of ball tampering, the administrators have shown contempt for the paying public and at least one umpire has seemed content to push an issue to the brink of crisis on a point of “principle”.
We can only trust that the umpire(s) actually witnessed a Pakistani player tampering with said ball. The judgment should not have been based on the presumption of guilt. A scuff here or a scratch there could easily have been caused by an England batsman whacking said object into the fence.
The Pakistan team was understandably miffed but played on. At the teabreak, the sense of victimisation overwhelmed the desire to return to the field and so the most self-mutilating of stand-offs began. Eventually, England’s batsmen returned, along with the umpires, who removed the bails. Did they end that session of play? Did they signal that the match itself was over? Were they inviting the Pakistan team to pack their bags?
With England’s batsmen back in the pavilion, Pakistan’s players realised the import of the moment and returned to the field, and it then appeared that the umpires were reluctant to restart the game. Whatever the reasoning, their decisions were profound in their long-term implications for a sport that trudged from the field yesterday evening in utter disrepute.