Cricket desperately needs a voice of reason before it sinks deeper into quicksand, into a lethal mix of emotion, pride, honour, neither of which is much good in law.

There is only one issue that confronts Pakistan, the ICC and Darrell Hair and that is whether or not Pakistan wilfully tampered with the cricket ball in the fourth Test against England. And as far as I know the on-field judge has passed his verdict and the appeal has not yet been heard. Everything else skirts the issue and dare I say, everything else weakens Pakistan’s case greatly.

They now have a lawyer who says they have a good case. He must. Would you be surprised if the same lawyer said exactly the same thing to the ICC on exactly the same issue?

Cricket has long been governed by a set of laws but teams have been expected to conform to (though no one consistently does!) convention and tradition as well.

Necessarily therefore, the governance has been loose, anybody could find loopholes in it. Even today the umpire needs offer no evidence in an lbw decision. Can you imagine a fine lawyer deliciously digging his teeth into the quality of evidence the umpire analysed before deciding a player was out lbw?

All sport requires instant on-field decision making and no game can survive unless the decision maker has full power to make those decisions. Decisions can be flawed, that is the inherent nature of instant, unscripted drama.

... contd.