5 Most Controversial Test cricket moments/series

 2. England vs Pakistan, 2006

Pakistan toured England in July-August, 2006 to play 4 Test matches. The first game of the series was drawn and Pakistan lost miserably in the next two games. Down by 2-0 in the series, Pakistan were under a lot of criticism for the decisions they had made during the entire series.

The fourth Test match was set to happen at the Oval. Having won the toss, Pakistan opted to bowl and reduced the hosts to 173 in the first innings, credits to 4 wickets each from Umar Gul and Mohammad Asif. Coming out to bat, Pakistan put up a mammoth total of 504, century coming from Mohammad Yousuf and nineties from the openers Imran Farhat and Mohammad Hafeez.

It was England’s turn to bat again and Pakistan were in a pretty comfortable situation having taken a whooping lead of 331 runs in the first innings. On the fourth day of the Test match, just before tea, umpire Darrell Hair convicted the Pakistan team of ball-tampering and awarded England five penalty runs along with a new ball. The convicted team protested against the verdict but Hair seemed adamant on his decision.

What followed was utter chaos and drama. Post tea, the Pakistan team refused to come back to the field. The umpires stood their ground and directed the team to resume play, but no response from Pakistan even after almost 20 minutes of waiting resulted in the umpires awarding the game to England on account of forfeiture by the opposition. England were 298 for 4 at that moment.

The Pakistan team, however, returned to the field after 25 minutes, only to find out that the match had slipped from their hands. What once seemed a comfortable victory was now a searing defeat. On 28th September, ICC acquitted Inzamam-ul-Haq, the then Pakistan captain, of ball-tampering but banned him for four one day internationals for marring the reputation of the game.

The controversy does not end here. Later, an e-mail leak revealed that Darrell Hair had written to the ICC that he’d resign from the Elite Umpire Panel if the ICC paid him a compensation of US$ 500,000. Further ahead, ICC announced that Hair would not be travelling to India for the 2006 Champions Trophy. Later on, he was banned from officiating in international matches. In 2007, Darrell Hair announced that he’d be suing the ICC and PCB on account of racial discrimination.