The Sunday Times Sports - Madugalle’s verdict for cricket

Ranjan Madugalle and his band of merry men in the match referee’s fraternity of the International Cricket Council (ICC), will debate the fate of one of the game’s most contentious yet greyest areas when they piece together the fragments of evidence to support controversial umpire Darrel Hair’s allegations of ball tampering against Pakistan this week.

Then there is the other matter of bringing the game into disrepute to be considered although experts predict the Pakistanis will now level counter allegations of pre-meditation on the umpire’s part for driving the issue.

Madugalle, who holds the eminent position of Chief Match Referee on the ICC panel, a rare honour for one of its members from the Asian bloc, will chair the crucial meeting which will attract the world’s focus because the outcome is critical to the future administration of the game. What emerges from these findings will not only target the administrative issues but it will also have far reaching implications into the sensitive topic of how much power match officials should be afforded if the best interest of the game is to be preserved.

Without interfering with the due process of the investigation and its outcome, a simple analysis suggests that unless the evidence presented is totally conclusive, the Pakistanis should not be crucified on the mere perception of their past deeds.This is in no way to be construed that the ball tampering did not occur, because such incidents have been noticeably on the rise over the past few years, exposed by the large number of television cameras bringing strife to players commentators and officials of the game.

It is also a known fact that players such as Sahid Afridi and Shoiab Akthar have had their run in’s with the game’s administration in the past with their misdemeanors on the field.

But the crux of this issue that should sway the panel is the glaring evidence that 26 cameras around the ground did not pick up any suspicious activity by the fielding team. Furthermore, the ball was 52 overs old and had taken a fair battering to the fences particularly by England batsman Kevin Pieterson where plenty of damage to its outer shell could have been caused by the concrete stands and the fence.

With all things deemed fair in sport, the evidence at face value suggests that the umpire’s observation and subsequent decision cannot be wholly substantiated unless there was enough evidence to prove that someone observed the untoward happening on the field.

There has been little to be gleaned from the incident in so far as the officialdom is concerned. The game’s hierarchy have been mostly tight lipped about anything to do with it since the infamous Darrel Hair email to the ICC rocked the administration to its very foundations.

It now appears that the ICC have hit the panic button to show the world that all’s well within its ranks. But the cracks are becoming increasingly evident that there is an undercurrent of unrest within its portals of power.

So, it is back to Madugalle and the investigators and their unenviable task of sorting out this mess. The general feeling that is emanating from this part of the globe is that the rule book may need a bit of tinkering with. Sub –clauses may need to be inserted similar to the illegal arm bending stipulation, so that the game’s main focus is not to exclude the spectators who play as important a part as the players in maintaining the game’s popularity.

Forfeiting matches is certainly not the best method of drawing crowds to the turnstiles so a broader and more mature outlook is a definite must if the dust is to settle on this matter.