Chaos at Kennington

So I'm sitting here watching the chaos at the Oval in the 5th Test this evening. Darrel Hair is refusing to come out for the remainder of the Test after a dispute over a ball tampering accusation made against the Pakistanis.

Pakistan refused to come out after tea and eventually were persuaded to take the field, only for Umpire Hair to decide not to come out.

Now, my thought is this. Would this happen in a football match? Or a rugby match? It is a nonsense, and it sums up the ICC's incompetence in running the game. There should have been no dispute. Part of the initial dispute seems to have been centred on the fact that Pakistan cannot appeal the accusation at stumps tonight. When they refused to take the pitch after tea, the umpires removed the bails indicating the that Pakistan had forfeited the match and the match was over. Now the law is an ass, but the law's the law. The umpires have made the decision and their decision is final. When a team tries to undermine the umpires' authority then that is the ball game. It is indicative of the ICC that they cannot even back their people in such an important time.

One more thing, and once again it is a gripe against the ICC. Nobody in the ground seemed to know what was going on. There were no announcements, no nothing. If you didn't have a radio to listen to TMS, or a pocket sized TV with Sky, then you would not have known what was going on and be left hanging for ages.