England-Pakistan Cricket’s Controversial Past
Pakistan will take on England for the first time since the “ball tampering” row in 2006. Andrew Strauss was captaining the English side in 2006 because Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff were injured. Strauss was a mere spectator back then. While remembering the event he said. “Being new to the captaincy, I probably wasn’t qualified to know what to do about it. I don’t think I could have done much that would have changed what happened, but maybe I could have spoken more to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Inzamam-ul-Haq-c64383 [Pakistan’s captain]. It’s hard to say. It was not something that the England team were particularly involved in but it was not a great advert for the game and let’s hope we don’t get anything like that in the future”.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shakoor-Rana-c89573 in 1987.
Recently match referee Chris Broad, father of English bowler Stuart Broad, warned Mohammad Aamer for colliding with Australian captain Ricky Ponting. These disputes are of a lower magnitude compared with Darrell Hair’s decision to forfeit the 2006 test match. It was for the first time in cricketing history that a test match was forfeited. England was given victory following Pakistan’s refusal to come on field. Test umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove penalized Pakistan five runs on account of ball tempering. Pakistani players rightly got frustrated for being charged for an offence that was never proved.
Strauss still wonders if he could have done anything to save the test match. “It was a terrible day and terrible for Test cricket. No one came out of that day with any credit”, Strauss told the Mail on Sunday.
The decision taken by umpires may have been correct in terms of law, but its implication made a mockery of the game that is followed around the world. According to the rules, the team that refuses to play will lose the match. The umpire’s opinion is very vital in this decision making process. It is for an umpire to decide if the team has shown any action that constitutes a refusal to play. It is the responsibility of an umpire to then inform the captain and if the captain persists with his previous decision then the umpire can forfeit the game in favour of the opponents. Law 21 states that, "If an umpire considers that an action by any player or players might constitute a refusal by either side to play then the umpires together shall ascertain the cause of the action. If they then decide together that this action does constitute a refusal to play by one side, they shall inform the captain of that side. If the captain persists in the action the umpires shall award the match in accordance with the above".
Darrell Hair’s decision earned him a bad name and was later removed from the ICC panel of elite umpires.
Pakistan will enter the series with a lot of confidence. Pakistan successfully defeated http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 in the second test match played at Headingley, Leeds. The Pakistanis will once again rely on their quality bowling. Their batting line up has so far failed to deliver but their strength lies in quality bowling. Mohammad Aamer, Mohammad Asif and Umar Gul will lead Pakistan’s bowling attack. The English team will feature James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Ajmal Shehzad.
English media will be scrutinizing every move of English players since their next outing will be against Australia. English test cricket revolves around Ashes series, which will be played in Australia later this year. The ultimate success for the English test team is to win the Ashes series. A series against Pakistan will prepare them for tough competition. The English team will go to Australia in November in order to defend the “Urn”. Strauss is hopeful that his team will learn from the upcoming series against Pakistan, “We all learned lessons. Hopefully that will help me to captain the side well out there [Australia] this winter”, Strauss added.
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