The Inimitable Mr Hair...

[athersgeo]

Last night:
2 sets sit ups

This morning:
15 mins tredmill
2 sets chest
2 sets lats


Well, week five is here and, wahoo for I have lost again. 3 pounds, this time, bringing my total loss up to nearing 10 pounds. Yay! I also had quite a good weekend (in that I got to the gym twice and *didn't* just sit at the computer snacking - and even if what I'm nibbling is healthy, it's still snacking), so I'm reasonably happy. I *do* wish I was losing a little bit more, but I suspect that in addition to losing fat, I'm probably starting to put on a little bit of muscle. (Or, to put another way, my trousers fit better than the weightloss would necessarily suggest.)

Anyway. That's where I am.

Soooo. How 'bout that cricket, then? Good *GRIEF* what a ballsup. The ICC have done about the only thing they can do in the circumstances (which is support an umpiring decision that does, albeit barely, comply with the existing rules and laws of the game), but it should have never, ever got that far.

First and foremost, the ball tampering issue. There was a 16 minute window for any tampering to have taken place. Alistair Cook's wicket fell at 2:14pm (the umpires get the ball when a wicket falls precisely so that a celebrating team DON'T have the chance to do something untoward to the ball) and the ball was changed at 2:30pm.

16 minutes.

Sky have gone through their footage and there is not one single incriminating image. Given the number of cameras Sky have at a game, it's extremely unlikely (not impossible, of course, but very unlikely all the same) that they wouldn't have caught *something* going on.

16 minutes.

Kevin Pieterson was batting. In that time, did he hit a boundary of some sort? Probably (given the way he bats). If so, could the ball have sustained damage in the crowd? Of course it could. Cricket stadia are not all soft cushions and padding once you leave the main playing surface! I've seen what happens to a ball when Andy Flintoff hits it into the stands, and it's not pretty, and I'm guessing Pieterson has a similar effect.

So do I think the ball was tampered with? No - or, at least, it's extremely unlikely.

Do I think this whole thing could have been handled better? Hell yes.

From that, then, to the protest. I can't say I blame the Pakistani team. They'd been accused of cheating and by an umpire they've had issue with before. I'm not sure that the choice of not coming out directly after tea was the right one, but I can understand why they made that choice.

Unfortunately, it was pretty clear when the umpires (and England batsmen) came out the second time that there was only one outcome Mr Hair wanted, and that's what we've got. The first forfit of a test match in over a hundred years.

So what do I think should have happened? A little common sense should have been used in the first place. Also, if Mr Hair had some proof of tampering, he should have *told* the Pakistani team about it. (The fact that he doesn't seem to have done suggests he was making an assumption.)

And in the words of Fandom Wank: And next, my thoughts on yaoi...

Comments

[b-liz.livejournal.com]

Yay! Well done on losing 10 pounds. And 3 pounds is brilliant to lose in a week (especially if, as you say, you're putting on muscle). I'm glad all your hard work is paying off :)

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[allygatorkin.livejournal.com]

Ah yes common sense, how lovely it would have been to se some of that!

About the hitting of boundaries during those 16 mins. There was this quote from Aggers in his web column

"The ball in question had not been hit for four during the previous three overs, and was never hit for six."

I don't know how many overs there had been in that 16 mins though probably only 3-4 though.

As you said, it's all a very big mess

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

Given that you have to allow for the change of batsmen in that 16 minutes, it's probably actually only 2 or maybe 3 overs.

Interesting that Aggers is making that point, though, that it hadn't been hit for a boundary.

[willowmina.livejournal.com]

It also raises the point about why are the Pakistani team saying that the ball was damaged through being hit for several sixes - when KP hit the only two sixes of the match, the first in over 63, and the ball having been changed in over 50 something...

I'm just glad England had won the series before this test though - it would have been awful to have won a series from a foreited match.

'Tis all very strange though. Quite scary last night when the Cricket was the top headline on the Beeb news.

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

*nods* To be fair, everything I've seen just says that the Pakistani team are saying the ball went into the crowd. Now, the example I cited (Mr Flintoff at his most distructive) wasn't a 6; it was a 4 hit so powerfully that it hit the boundary rope and took off, into the stand (incidentally causing me to duck and narrowly avoid serious injury!) so it's *POSSIBLE* that's what they mean.

That said, I didn't see the period of play in question so I don't know for sure one way or the other, and Aggers does say that the ball hadn't gone for a boundary (any kind of boundary) in that 16 minute period mentioned.

I'm with you on the series win though; that really would have been a sour note to say the least. And yeah, cricket being the top headline is seldom a good thing.