SYDNEY, Aug 23: Australia will never follow Pakistan's lead and refuse to play out a Test match, team coach John Buchanan said on Wednesday. For the first time in the 129-year-history of Test cricket, a team was deemed to have forfeited the match after Pakistan refused to take the field following tea on Sunday's fourth day at The Oval.

They did so in protest at the earlier decision by Australian umpire Darrell Hair and West Indian colleague Billy Doctrove to award five penalty runs to England because of what the umpires said was ball-tampering by Pakistan.

Buchanan said it would be unfathomable for an Australian team to end any match through a protest.

“We have never done it in the past and I can't see any reason why we would want to do it in the future,” he said during Wednesday's team 'boot camp' in Queensland's bush.

“As we know we play the game pretty aggressively but I think we always play it within the rules and the spirit of the game.

“So I don't think that would be part of what we'd be wanting to do, if they're the alleged facts.”

Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq will appear at an ICC hearing to answer charges of bringing the game into disrepute and changing the condition of the ball.

Buchanan said he hoped the ICC swiftly resolved the situation as a drawn-out investigation would further damage the game.

“I don't think it would do cricket any good and it obviously needs to be resolved and a way forward be found, that's certainly in their hands,” he said.

Captain Ricky Ponting said he believed Inzamam may not be the man to blame.

He believes coach Bob Woolmer and the Pakistani team manager may have sparked the protest once the players returned to the pavilion after being docked the five-run penalty.

“Who knows how I'd handle it and how the Australian cricket team would handle it in that situation but you'd like to think that we'd be able to do the right thing by the game and by everybody concerned,” Ponting said.

World-breaking leg-spinner Shane Warne has defended Hair's role in the crisis.

“I don't think Darrell Hair is racist, that's the only thing I'll say,” said Warne. “He's not racist, he just tries to do the best job he can. The times I've had him he's been fine.”

Opening batsman Justin Langer said on Sunday was a particularly sad day in Test cricket's history.

“As Donald Bradman said, we're all custodians of the game and we want to leave it in better shape,” Langer said.

“Games like that getting forfeited, we're probably not leaving it in better shape than we first got into it.”—AFP