Inzaman Gets The Minimum At ICC White Wash

In the end one wonders why so much money and so many expensive lawyers were engaged to give Inzaman the minimum punishment for a charge not even his mum could argue he was innocent of in her heart of hearts. What does this say? That 2 umpires and 2 match officials were wrong over ball tampering? Or that unless a camera catches the player doing it umpires should just take it and not say a thing? Ludicrous. Cynics were handing out this punishment last week.

Whatever the final state of the ball the umpires regular inspection surely made them best, and the only people, placed to make the call. It was only the ludicrous and childish behaviour of the Pakistan team that made it anything special. Had they taken the 5 run penalty and won the game, like men, it would be a footnote in a series they lost. They would also not be responsible for soiling the game in such a unique and public way even Cronje failed to match.

Given they could have called a world wide audience of millions for the prosecution the disrepute charge was irrefutable. The scale of the offense surely warranted more serious charges than "bringing the game into disrepute" on one person - their moronic and consistent comments afterwards warrented that alone for coach Woolmer, Inzaman and S Khan not to mention Waqar's subsequent witterings this week. In that context Inzaman should obviously have got the maximum ban if he was deemed to be responsible. He as a cricketer should know the umpires view is final on the field of play. He could have been a man and defended himself at a subsequent hearing and got the "not proven" on ball tampering. However he and his team and management opted to behave like childish trash.

The ECB jaw droppingly craven support for Pakistan, a team clearly in the wrong, and the subsequent minimal charges and ban from the ICC shows a level of contempt for the cricketing public who had their day spoiled as deep as any ocean. Countries can now feel free to soil the game and disrespect umpires. Umpires have to call what they see whether they are wrong or not. Teams have to on the field of play abide by that. It was that simple until this craven and ignorant judgement.

Probably the most staggering part of the judgement is a minimum ban for Inzaman al Haq. On sentencing surely his previous should have been brought to bear even if he was minimally guilty, which seems a staggering judgement given his team clearly failed to fulfill a fixture.

What makes it all the more staggering is the Pakistan complaints of soiled honour. Yet within their squad, players and coaches, are at least 2 convicted of altering the condition of the ball and one who in front of everyone tried rough the wicket up last winter. So tolerance of cheats is not in line with this "honourable" nonsense. If they cared about cheating so much what are these people doing there? As it turns out ball tampering is almost de riguer and hence this protest made no sense from any perspective and to now effectively be endorsed by the ICC is sad.

To cap it all the ICC will not stand umpire Hair at the ICC 'Champions Trophy'. What a spineless bunch of toads they are. They have no credibility or sense of principal.