Hair accuses Pakistan of ball-tampering – another
perspective
But who tempered the ball? Well, cannot be Collingwood
or Kevin Pietersen at the least.
Pakistani team?
Billy Doctrove or Darrell
Hair? Hey hey! Hold on. Did I say Darrell Hair??? Um interesting.
I have got no proof against Darrell, but then; even Darrell
didn’t have any proof against Inzimam and his men.
So, if this must go that way, why not to turn the tables
around?
Darrel Hair’s romance with Pakistan team has never
been a secret to the world. They have history – a
good long history of controversies; be it reporting Shoaib
Akhtar and Shabbir Ahmad for chucking or Shahid Afridi for
damaging the pitch or giving Inzimam run out for avoiding
being hit by the ball.
Based on that and few other incidents involving Darrell
Hair and other Pakistani players like Danish Kaneria (landing
on the danger area) and Salaman Butt (running on the pitch),
PCB had openly expressed their love for Hair. PCB, at several
occasions in the past, had requested ICC not to appoint
Hair in the matches featuring Pakistan and even prior to
the start of England tour, PCB registered their reservations
with the ICC about Darrell Hair officiating in the series.
A cricket ball, as a norm is always kept rough at one side
and made shiny at the other by rubbing legitimately. A forty
or fifty overs old ball looks really scuffed at one side
and now it’s really easy to make it look worse; just
a matter of scratching the surface a bit or using your nail
and the ball will look tempered. It can be tempered by anyone
who gets to hold it, and umpires too take possession of
the ball at all major intervals during play. Needless to
mention, that before the ball-tempering incident took place,
Hair possessed the ball specifically during drinks break
(after lunch) and during the dismissal-interval of Alastair
Cook.
Be Darrell Hair for a while and imagine yourself in his
coat, umpiring in a match featuring Pakistani team. Don’t
you feel unwanted? Don’t you feel like
standing alone in the middle of a battle field surrounded
by 11 enemies? Now given the strong, stubborn personality
of Darrell Hair and all the powers on hand, can he not think
of a backlash? It’s as easy as scratching the ball
at any time during his possession, showing it to Billy Doctrove,
getting it replaced and awarding 5-penalty runs to England,
and rest is up to Pakistani team, PCB and ICC. Because if
ICC as always, backed his action; its mission accomplished
for Hair, but if they did not; its plan B – to offer
to resign for a one-off payment of $500,000.
