Why the ICC should declare the Oval Test a draw (in spite of what Jonathan Agnew says)

Yesterday, the world’s media reported that the result of the controversial Oval Test between England and Pakistan in 2006 is to be changed from an English victory to a draw.  The ICC is expected to make this change at its meeting in Dubai following pressure from the PCB.  A Cricinfo source stated“England and Pakistan have agreed to declare the Oval Test as a draw to maintain the dignity of Pakistan in world cricket, especially after the ball-tampering charges were dropped.”

Originally the result was officially declared as ‘Match Forfeited by Pakistan’ and therefore England won the Test.  On the Fourth Afternoon of the Test, Pakistan had a lead and were pushing for a win when the umpires enabled the England batsmen to change the ball and awarded them 5 penalty runs - indicating Pakistan were guilty of ball tampering.  Inzamam, Pakistan’s captain, did not seem to be aware of this allegation until tea when his team did not immediately come out to play.  By the time Pakistan came out, the match had been declared a forfeit and awarded to England.  In subsequent hearings, Pakistan were to be found not guilty of ball-tampering and Darrell Hair was removed from the ICC Elite Panel.

The reports that the result will be changed by the ICC have been met with fierce criticism by some quarters including BBC journalist Jonathan Agnew who claimed this will open “an absolutely enormous can of worms”. The following are his comments on a BBC Radio 5 Live interview:

“The Pakistanis were accused of ball tampering and they did not come out to play. The umpires went into their room and said ‘You must come out to continue the game’, they did not and, under the laws of any sport, if you refuse to play, you lose the game.

Match abandoned, they’re saying, as a draw, - well, abandoned on what grounds? It wasn’t the weather, it wasn’t anything else, it was that Pakistan wouldn’t come out to play for whatever reason.

That game has now been classified as a draw, so if you’re losing, you sit in the dressing room, don’t come out and you can get away with a draw.”

The point I feel Agnew’s comments are missing is the same point which was missing in the officialing of the whole case itself - common sense.  The first ones to open“an absolutely enormous can of worms” were Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove when they made a decision that was bound to provoke anger of a huge magnitude.  I am not saying they should be scared of implementing the laws of cricket but they should have exercised them with greater wisdom. Perhaps when their suspicions increased, they could have asked the 3rd Umpire to look into the TV footage. As a result, in the coming days they were hugely embarrassed to see the 21 cameras in the ground could find no sign at all of ball tampering.  In my opinion you are always putting yourself in a vulnerable situation if you accuse someone of a serious crime without strong evidence.

Although mistakes were made at that split second, they could have been amended had greater common sense been used.  Perhaps the Pakistan team should have come out to play immediately after tea and then levelled their protest at the end of the day’s play.  Also the umpires should have shown greater common sense after they made their ultimatum.  The Pakistan team did come out to play 25 minutes after tea but by this time it was the umpires who were refusing to let the match continue.  Therefore people like Jonathan Agnew cannot say the Pakistanis ‘refused to play’ - this situation is not that simple.  Following this, we would have expected the match referee, Mike Proctor, to be able to negotiate some sort of compromise but he went anonymous during this time.  At the time Michael Atherton said that the umpires should have had the humility to let the game go on and Nasser Hussain said he would have done exactly what Inzamam did.

When Inzamam (in effect Pakistan) was cleared of ball tampering, this should had proved that greater fault lay with the umpires that the Pakistanis.  Inzamam and Pakistan’s greatest crime was to delay the match by 25 minutes which surely is not enough to lose a match.  Common sense shows the match was abandoned due to the uncompromising nature of the umpires, not due to a willful decision by the Pakistan team to forfeit the match.  Rather than only considering the split second when the umpires took the bails off, we should also consider who was unwilling to continue the match at 5pm, and then 6pm and then for the whole following day.  Laws do not normally offer total guidelines for highly unusual situations such as this one which is why common sense should prevail.  Therefore when the ICC meets, it should consider whether or not Pakistan intended to forfeit the match and that they were willing to play for all but 25 minutes of the 5 day match.  It should also instruct its officials to use common sense as well as the laws in all situations to ensure correct decisions are made.  To Agnew’s final comment, common sense tells us his theoretical situation is a result of one team having the total intent to not continue on with the match at all, which means the result would be a forfeit.  Common sense also tells us Pakistan never shared this total intent while the umpires did and therefore Pakistan did not forfeit the match.

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