A Sad Day for Cricket

On Sunday, Chaos gripped the Oval. The Pakistan team, having been accused of ball tampering (a form of cheating), refused to come out of their changing room after the tea break. When they eventually came out, the Umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove refused to come out of their changing room, having decided that, by refusing to play, Pakistan had forfeited the match. The ICC have backed the Umpires, England were awarded the Test Match (winning the series 3-0) and the Pakistani Captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq has been accused of bringing the game into disrepute.

Cricket is a very English game. It encapsulates typical English values like fair play. It is also very English in the sense that you must play by the rules or you don't play at all. The truth is that
the Umpires were perfectly within their rights to award England 5 runs when they thought that ball tampering had occured and they were following the Laws of Cricket when they decided to award the match to England.

This dogmatic aproach to following the Laws is bad for cricket. The unwillingness to bend the rules after a deal had been reached by the English and Pakistani cricket boards meant that not only was Pakistan's honour insulted (a grave thing in their culture), leading to the current crisis, but the fans were disappointed, and the primary goal of every sport should be to entertain the fans.

So yes, we need rules for every game, and yes they should be followed, but if bending the rules keeps the game going with no real harm to anyone, then they should be bent.