Re: Is Inzamam's punishment justified???
Both of them took their team off the field while the play was going on, on the other hand this time around Pakistan under Inzamam did not come out after the tea interval. With Ranatunga and Imran the intention was made clear to everyone. The umpires knew, the crowd knew, the media people knew that the team is coming off field in protest.
This time around everyone was clueless. Pakistan just didnt bother to show up after tea. Later on Mr. Shehryar Khan clearified that the team did not come out under protest but before that people were just wondering what was going on in the Pakistani dressing room.
Coming back to the thread, I think it was a fair decision. Ball tempering charge was not proven and Inzi got punished for not taking the field after tea interval. That is no way to protest. Had Inzi gotten away without any penalty it would have given a green signal to every team in world cricket to leave the field whenever they felt they were hard done by an official. Mistakes and bias both result in bad decisions but one has to live with them and move on with the game.
Pakistan should have protested right there and then when the ball was changed, or if they wanted to protest after tea they should have informed the match refree of their intentions and then came out to the field after 5-10 minutes. Wasting almost an hour (50 minutes I think it was) for protest was childish and Inzi paid the penalty for it. I am sure the decision to stay in the dressing room was not his, or atleast he was one of the few people deciding what to do but in the end being the skipper he had to pay the price for that action. He got the most lenient punishment for bringing the game into disrepute so I guess that pretty much tells and ICC that ICC did take the circumstances in account before dishing out the punishment.