CENTURION, Nov 26: Former International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee Clive Lloyd believes a way could have been found to allow the third Test between South Africa and India to proceed as planned on an official basis.

“It’s unfortunate,” Lloyd, a former West Indies captain who is visiting South Africa, said on Monday.

“There must have been ways they could have gotten around this controversy. They could have played the Test and had an inquiry afterwards, or even during the Test.”

“I hope it (the Denness controversy) doesn’t cause too much damage,” Lloyd said. “We’ve had the match-fixing scandal and we’ve just come back to normalcy. We could have done without this.”

“You have to look at these things carefully - they’re not always black and white,” Lloyd said of the decisions taken by Denness at the Port Elizabeth test.

“Sometimes you have to make harsh decisions, and sometimes you have to do things for the good of the game.

“You don’t want to fine people but, when it comes to breaking the law, you want to be strong.”

“The match referee should speak to the teams individually - not just to the captains and the coaches. Teams should know how far they can go. Give them some leeway, but they must know they can only go this far.”

Lloyd said cricket would be better served by the panel of professional umpires and referees which the ICC is set to implement in April.

“It’s been a long time coming, and it’s the right time to do so,” he said.—Reuters