Storm in a Teacup

BEDFORD ROAD: Cricket? You've got to love it, it's just a shame some people try so hard to fuck it up. I was completely behind Pakistan until yesterday afternoon's farcical hystronics. Okay so they tampered with the ball. Maybe - the evidence is yet to be seen but the umpire's word is, and must be, sacrosanct. (And doesn't the penalty, five runs and a replacement ball, seem somewhat ludicrous?) Couldn't they have just accepted the penalty and moved. When Kevin Pietersen, in the second or third test, was blatantly out, he didn't walk. It wasn't necessarily fair but nobody complained. It wasn't the done thing. And that decision cost Pakistan far more than five runs.

Now I understand Inzi doesn't want to get slurred as a cheat but everybody has done it more or less. Remember Mike Atherton? I think it was an Australian trick to rub the sugar from sucked lollies. Why does ball tampering all of a sudden have to become utterly taboo in the manner of chucking or massacring your wife's family? They made a mistake, they got caught, pay up, move on. As though Pakistani cricket can take the high moral ground? Remember Salim Malik?

I'm not saying Australians are above reproach, we're not, I just want people to move on and play the fucking game.