Cricket: Chaos as England win by default

Aug 21 2006 Western Mail

ENGLAND'S final Test against Pakistan ended in dramatic circumstances late last night with International Cricket Council officials ruling the match should be forfeited in the hosts' favour.

After hours of deliberations, it was agreed the match could no longer continue following the controversial scenes earlier in the day.

A joint statement from the ICC, England and Wales Cricket Board and Pakistan Cricket Board read, "After lengthy negotiations which resulted in agreement between the teams, the match referee and both the ECB and PCB to resume the fourth Test tomorrow, it was concluded that with regret there will be no play on the fifth day.

"The fourth Test has therefore been forfeited with the match being awarded to England.

"In accordance with the laws of cricket, it was noted that the umpires had correctly deemed that Pakistan had forfeited the match and awarded the Test to England."

Pakistan had been aggrieved by the award of five penalty runs to England after umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove believed there had been ball tampering.

Officials from both camps alongside umpires Hair and Doctrove and match referee Mike Proctor were involved in hours of talks at the end of a dramatic fourth day which resulted in both Pakistan and then the umpires refusing to take the field.

The inflamed situation began at 2.30pm when the umpires decided the state of the ball had been altered by someone on the fielding side as Pakistan pushed for victory.

Under the laws of the game the umpires awarded five penalty runs to England despite protests from the tourists but after playing on until just before tea, when bad light halted play with England on 298 for four and still 33 runs adrift, the tourists failed to emerge from their dressing room at the appointed 4.40pm restart.

The umpires waited five minutes in the middle before walking off to the bemusement of the sell-out crowd and England batsmen Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell, who were both waiting to restart on the England balcony.

After a further 10 minutes both the umpires and the England batsmen again returned to the middle, but the only response from the Pakistan dressing room was wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal to emerge and sit on the balcony reading a newspaper.

Under Law 21.3, if the incident is not resolved and the umpires believe Pakistan are refusing to play on, they can award a match to the other side, although 12,000 tickets were sold for the final day.

David Morgan, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, was then seen talking to Shahriyar Khan, his counterpart at the Pakistan Cricket Board, to see if they could resolve the crisis and those meetings went on several hours after the finish of 6.13pm.

"From our point of view the boys were extremely upset at the slur of ball-tampering and, as a result, they wanted to register a protest with the match referee," explained Shahriyar.

"Once we had done that we were ready play, but there is now a question of the umpires not being prepared to go out.

"We said we would stay in the dressing room for a few minutes and then go out and play, but the umpires came and warned the boys what would happen if certain things continued and we would forfeit the match."

Shahriyar continued, "The umpires are convinced the ball has been scuffed up and we are sure that was not the case.

"The umpires are totally within their rights to make the decision they made, but the captain and boys feel gravely insulted they were not consulted.

"One or two members of our management team have seen the ball and they are convinced it is a ball that has been hit about after 50 or 60 overs. There is no evidence whatsoever that it has been deliberately scuffed."

The controversy entirely overshadowed play, where England batted with fight and flair to reduce their arrears after resuming 253 runs adrift on 78 for one.

Kevin Pietersen made a rapid 96 and Alastair Cook a fighting 83 as England made 298 for four before tea, but the exciting action on the field was soon little more than an irrelevance as off-field drama took over.

Among the concerns last night were the effect the controversy could have on the scheduled one-day series between the two sides.

Cardiff's Sophia Gardens is due to play host to the first one-day international in just nine days' time.