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| October 02, 2006 | Monday | Ramazan 8, 1427 |
Technical fault in Oval fiasco, admits Shaharyar
KARACHI, Oct 1: Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), Shaharyar M. Khan on Sunday said he would continue to press for an investigation into the conduct of Australian umpire Darrell Hair over the ball-tampering affair in London.
Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was cleared of ball-tampering charges by the International Cricket Council (ICC) last week.
But the 36-year-old captain was handed a four-match ban for bringing the game into disrepute over his team's refusal to take the field in the fourth Test against England at The Oval last month.
The protest came after Hair and fellow umpire Billy Doctrove of the West Indies penalised Pakistan five runs on suspicion of ball tampering.
Inzamam said on Friday he would not seek legal action against Hair over the affair saying his religion of Islam “teaches us to forgive and forget.”
But Shaharyar said the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) would continue to ask the ICC to investigate the controversial Hair.
“We had demanded an investigation against Hair's conduct and that demand was made before the inquiry and we would continue to have a stand on it,” he told reporters on his return from London.
He added that the question of compensation was also still to be settled.
“The matter may not have been settled as yet because the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) are going to write us about compensation over financial losses over ticket sale returns of the Oval Test,” he said.
The ECB last month said it had incurred huge losses on returning amounts for last day's tickets of the Oval Test. Pakistan's refusal to return to the field resulted in them forfeiting the match -- the first time this has happened in 129 years of Test cricket.
“We are not ready to pay because it was not our responsibility,” he said.He said the team's original protest was sparked by the umpire's decision not to tell the them why they had been docked five points.
“The decision of protest was due to anger because umpires did not tell Pakistan why they were penalised five runs and even Inzamam did not know about why the five penalty runs were docked,” he added.
Shaharyar said the team were not going to protest the forfeit or Inzamam's ban.
“What the inquiry transpired was that it was a technical blunder that we did not come to the field. Actually we had decided to stage a five-minute protest and now we would investigate who was responsible for the fiasco,” he added.
“The second thing is that the umpire's decision is final and that's why Inzamam has been banned and we are not appealing against the ban nor are we asking for the Oval forfeit to be abolished,” he said.—Agencies
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