Justice still awaits

Vindication is sweet but clearly it is no thirst-quencher. After Inzamam-ul-Haq and the Pakistan team were cleared of ball tampering charges and for Pakistan as a country, a slur removed and its honour restored, the sights were trained on Darrell Hair. What, Pakistan asked arms folded, feet tapping as if to say 'We told you so', will now happen to Hair?

Ex-cricketers naturally led the way. You are more likely to get Bush, Chavez and Ahmedinijad to speak as one than your Pakistani ex-captains, especially a list as diverse as Aamir Sohail, Imran Khan, Javed Miandad, Wasim Akram, Ramiz Raja and Rashid Latif. But on the matter of Hair, miraculously, they are united.

Imran pointed out to AFP that the punishment faced by Inzamam was quite a minor one but that a greater one should await Hair, a man he infamously called 'Mini-Hitler' in a newspaper column. "I welcome the acquittal of Inzamam and the team of ball-tampering charges. The other offence is quite minor and I think the punishment is also minor. Now the question is what to do with the man who created the whole controversy. If Inzamam is cleared, now some sort of action should be taken against the man who was responsible for such serious allegations."

The PCB have not ruled out bringing a disrepute charge against Hair and Raja backed up his one-time employers. Asking the ICC to do something about Hair, he ventured - no doubt to groans from sports reporters and editors around the world - the case may not yet be over. "The ICC need to pull up their socks and take a firm decision now on Darrell Hair," he told AFP, simultaneously offering sartorial and legal counsel. "Pakistan's lawyers now would be arguing that if he was not guilty of ball-tampering, why has he been handed out a four-match ban punishment? I think this case is not over yet and Pakistan should contest this decision aggressively because they are in the right."

Fittingly, given their abrasive on-field presence and reputations for telling it precisely as it is, both Sohail and Miandad rounded not only on Hair, but gingerly chided Inzamam as well for not playing on at The Oval. Miandad told Karachi-based daily Dawn, "Inzamam should have continued playing under protest as Pakistan were in a winning position at that time. It would have conveyed a good impression to the spectators who had been waiting for resumption of play."

Ever the pragmatist, he admitted that action needed to be taken against Inzamam. "The governing body was under pressure to set an example by penalising Inzamam for bringing the game into disrepute otherwise it would have rendered the laws and the ICC code of conduct meaningless," he reasoned. About Hair, there was similar realism. "Hair's career as an umpire is over because he will always be seen as a controversial figure even if he takes the right decisions."

For those who followed their tetchy relationship while coach and chief selector, Sohail echoing Miandad's beliefs will come as a shock. "Inzamam got a bit carried away at The Oval and was not advised properly by either the team management or the board officials of the consequences," he told the same paper. And he called, predictably, for the ICC to sack Hair, or failing that, for Hair to show some character and resign.

On the streets, similar opinion was expressed by fans, though with less diplomacy. "I think by acquitting Inzamam, ICC has shown fairness. What I don't understand is why did it not remove Hair from the elite panel after he was found guilty of bringing the match and the umpires into disrepute!" One college student took the verdict to prove that Hair was "one of the poorest umpires in world cricket. He needs to be sacked." In Inzamam's hometown of Multan, a small group of students took part in what looked suspiciously like an amicable protest. One placard read 'We want justice for Inzamam', another that 'Derrel (sic) Hair is Hitlor (sic) for cricket'.

With Hair out of the Champions Trophy, Pakistan's wishes have been partially answered. And for the future? One journalist offered useful words of advice to Hair. If ever, he said, Hair writes another autobiography, the material is ready. And should he ever feel the need to promote it in Pakistan, he would do well to title it after another hotly debated, widely contentious, best-selling memoir: President Musharraf's 'In the Line of Fire'.