Political Cricket!

Everyone hates politics; Everyone loves Sports; But what happens when you mix both? As it was seen through the developments in the day in the test match between Pakistan and England at the Oval, the result is very ugly. The worst part of it has been that even after 2 hours of melodrama not a single person including the ICC Officials, the respective boards or the players know if the match would be continued. When there is such a loud silence, it is the unrelenting ego of a few people that causes it.

Accusations of Ball Tampering
It all started with the Umpire Darrell Hair halting play to fetch a new ball saying the Pakistanis had tampered with the ball. Inzamam protested, but Hair docked 5 runs from the Pakistan Total for altering the ball. He actually was implying that the Pakistanis were cheating. The important thing here was that he never blamed any one person of tampering with the ball and couldn't also point out when it was done. He just claimed it was tampered.
Aggrieved and enraged at the accusation of cheating, Inzamam decided to protest against this unjust act by not bringing out his team to the field after the Tea interval. Any proud and self-respecting captain would have done the same thing if his team was maligned with such charges. But what ensued from thereon was just ridiculous. Umpires come out to the field - Pakistanis dont - Umpires take off the bails and walk off - Board officials convince Pakistanis to come out - Now where are the umpires?. And all this brouhaha, the commentators are reading cricket laws and reading lips and videos to figure out if the match was forfeited or not.

The Biased Referee
Umpire Darrell Hair will definitely not figure in the good books of any cricket playing nation from Asia (Indian Sub-continent to be precise). First, it was his bold move to call 7 No-Balls to the deliveries bowled by Sri Lankan spinner Mutthiah Muralitharan, labelling him as a "Chucker". He had heated exchanges with the Sri Lankan skipper Arjuna Ranatunga who threatened to walk off. Second, was an incident with Saurav Ganguly who was chided for looking at replays of an incorrect lbw decision by himself. He was told, "That screen is not for you, its for the crowd." Third, was when he banned Danish Kaneria from bowling, because he entered the "Danger Area" on the pitch too many times after many warnings. Kaneria swore he wasnt warned.
If you watch any match involving a country from the sub-continent with Darrell Hair refereeing it, you can feel his resentment against these teams. Rameez Raja, one of the commentators and a veteran Pakistani cricketer was holding himself from disclosing how Pakistanis felt about his umpiring. He went as far as saying that, they had approached ICC to not assign Darrell Hair as an umpire in any match involving Pakistan. I stop myself a few yards away from calling the man a Racist.

The under-current feelings
Every comment that came out of any commentator's mouth was thought over a hundred times, because of the recent bomb threat in the UK airport. As a few people of Pakistani origin were supposed to be behind that, everyone wanted to make sure that the match was being played in the right "spirit" and no love was lost between the teams. They knew that with the under-current feelings of racism would be sprouted by media sooner or later.
Speaking of media, it was surprising that the Indian media which claims to be 24X7 was caught unawares of such drama in England. They were busy showing shows discussing Modern marriages or taking comments from lunatics who started drinking "sweetened" sea water thinking it was a gift from God. This shameful incident might be the first in cricket and might not have got importance in most countries. But cricket in India is a religion and the Indian media will go out of the way for stories which might have the slightest relation to this religion.

Outcome?
I pity those spectators who spent money on the tickets to watch a cricket match. They were given a raw deal by being shown a diplomatic and political match. Even after 2 hours of waiting, there was an announcement saying that it was the end of play. No mention of end of Day's play or end of the match. There are 4 ICC officials for every match - 2 umpires on field, a 3rd umpire and a Match Referee. But none of them were interested in sorting out this issue. What a pity.