England

I agree 100% that communctions, or lack thereof, are responsible for the scale of this mess.

We knew we'd won, that wasn't in doubt. It was only a matter of exaclty `when` we had won. Altogether less dramatic and significant. But I do take your point.

Suffice to say communication between various parties has never been the strong suit of any cricket `body`.

If there is any truth that Inzamam went back to the dressing room on a misunderstanding then the ICC need to learn from it.

Surely everthing should go through one point - namely the Match referee. It should be his responsibility to inform both captains and the general public what is happening whenever there is any break in play.

The MR should do this even if it is evident what the break in play is for e.g. rain.

When the Pakistan team didn't emerge at 16:45 it should not have been a shock to the umpires and the English batsmen. Zaheer Abbas or some representative should have informed the MR of their intentions to have a protest without the farce of the umpires going out onto the pitch. The MR could have told the umpires and Strauss/Fletcher and then informed the public about the reason for the delay.
Hardly rocket science!

DH is probably bound by the ICC not to say anything.

The ICC seem to adopt the principle of "least said - soonest mended".

Of course in an information vacuum, speculation reaches epic proportions.

I think the key point is that refusing to come out for any length of time is an implicit indication of forfeiture, whether for 5 or 20 minutes. Guilt or innocence over ball tampering aside, the Pakistani team should have taken the field at the time indicated by the umpires.

Pakistan going out onto the field 30 minutes later was a very clever move which attempted to paper over the earlier bungle.

Obviously Mr Hair is a pretty obstinate chap, but rules are rules. We all suffer great injustice in cricket (dodgy lbws, bump-balls, caught behind off armguard/thighpad etc.,), but test cricketers are in the enviable position of being able to right wrongs at the end of the game.

Inzy's response should have been thus:

"OK, we've been pulled up for ball tampering and conceded 5 runs. Put that ball in a box, seal it and send it to Mike Procter, let's whip England out, knock the runs off, then fight with every sinew to demonstrate our innocence."

However, what does interest me is that any bowler found guilty of ball tampering is immediately banned from bowling for the remainder of the innings (or possibly the match). If Azir or Kaneria were under suspicion (these are the only two names I've seen even vaguely implicated as the culprit) then why were they not told not to bowl again?

All in all I'm gutted that a fantastic test match, and a thrilling series (played in a great spirit) has been effectively ruined by this incident. I don't want to apportion blame - I think Pakistan misjudged the incident after tea, but I can't think of anyone who would want to be on the team that forfeited a test match for the first time.

Can't say fairer than that.