MODS: PLEASE EDIT the thread title for correct spelling of scandal.
I can imagine that had this scandal taken place ten or fiteen years ago, the absence of 24 hours news cycle and internet would have left us dependent on the print media to get information on this issue in once a day episodes. I have also no doubts that we (or at least I) might not have felt so aggravated in that information vaccum and our reaction might have been a bit delayed if not completely diluted.
Luckily we do live in 2006, and there has been plenty of information on the ongoing scandal, though shamefully, majority of this is on international media and not on the Pakistani ones.
I am wondering how have you been personally affected by this incident. I am visiting Pakistan on vacation these days, which meant that I had plenty of time to dig around (pun intended) and seek out all there is to read and see regarding this incident, so I don’t know if there are other people who are as heartbroken, sad, and aggrieved as I have been feeling.
I can tell you that since Sunday, I have spent about 90% of my waking time reading articles, blogs (thanks to Google blogsearch), watching news, and talking to people around me. I have slept little if at all, and the first thought that came to my mind after I woke up, was to go online and check for any more developments.
I am extremely upset that Darrell Hair’s wet dream has come true in the form of this controversy. Unlike Pakistan, who are in a lose-lose situation regardless of the outcome of the inquiry, he will be remembered (thanks to Aussie media) A BRAVE UMPIRE who had the guts to go where no modern day umpire wanted to go. An umpire out on a crusade to rid Cricket of its evils, be it chucking or ball tampering.
To me, he’s an arrogant bastrad who doesn’t mind grandstanding at the cost of Cricket. It’s quite possible that ICC might not penalize Inzi on the ball tampering charges for ‘lack of evidence’, but the International media will report it as 'Inzi escaping penalty for ‘lack of concrete evidence’ and not a proof of Hair’s officious and overly aggressive handling of the affair. We’ll become guilty by association (with the topic of ball tampering) in public’s eyes.
ICC will never rebuke its own official publically, and this is what is really hurting me. Not in a symbolic, detached and superficial way, rather in a personal way as if it was my own integrity and reputation that has become the victim of an overly ambitious, self important ICC official.
Regardless of the outcome of the hearing on Inzi’s charges, Darrell Hair has already won. He wanted a controversy, he got one at our cost.
I am really really upset. Been trying to sleep for the past 6 hours 
