The moment it was revealed that the only thing used to come to a decision was Proctor taking the word of the Australians, regardless of anything else, how could anyone actually believe that the full allegation could stand?

No, he would have read his procedures inside out and acted according to them.

Cricket disputes have evolved beyond umpires and match referee's, they now need to be handled by experienced "barrister's" and have experienced "judges" adjudicating in them.

It is not Mike Proctor's fault, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And lacked the appropriate legal knowledge to be able to deal with the situation.

As I would suggest every other ICB referee would lack as well.

Cricket is becoming a big business. The ICB should be able to afford the best judiciary in these matters, especially considering the parties involved are extremely eager to bring in the most powerful barristers and attorneys at their disposal to argue their cases.

BBC SPORT | Cricket | Harbhajan cleared of racial abuse

He has been cleared of Racial abuse - and his 3 match ban lifted, also he loses half his match fee.

This could have been sorted a couple of weeks ago.

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Ern

Friday night

Summer

M.C.G

Heaps of them with half a skinful in them

I fear what the fall out will be after this game.

The simplest and the most logical solution would have been for a quick apology by Harbhajan to Symonds followed by a handshake. All this palaver was unnecessary and gave room for needless arguement all over, including among ourselves as evidenced by our posts for the last 2 weeks or so. I am including myself in this, of course.

Agree Nostromo

Some public and perhaps personal meeting between the two of them. And a combined statement such as.

"We are over it"

It does not take extraordinary legal knowledge to know that you can not hold someone guilty when there is not sufficient proof of his guilt. Even a kid would know as much. This is common sense. Most people in this forum know it and they are not legal experts, are they? What Proctor did was ridiculous. ICC need to appoint match referees with some common sense to handle such matters.

I still can not understand why Channel 9 was sitting on the audio feeds all this while allowing the controversy to grow? Were they enjoying the drama?

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My computer can beat me at chess.....but its no match for me at kick boxing.

well i dunno...there are stump mic transcripts that are floating around in aussie media that seem to look as though bhajji made the comment...they dont show whether he made the statement but he doesn't deny it in that piece saying he started it and stuff....but then this couldve been edited as they like so i guess its inconclusive. the cricket boards have also reached a compromise....i dunno there is a bigger fiasco on the cards but they want it to be buried. i really hope such incidents dont even come up in the future...keep cricket a clean game for the lovers of the game to enjoy on-field activities not discuss about off-field politics like hearings.

As a cricket traditionalist I totaly agree, all it would have took was for Harbhajan to apologise, and for Symonds to accept - and the ICC and other boddies should have not been involved.

The players can show respect for each other, without appearing so be sissy, the problem with all this palaver is that it will attract more in the future - this is not the game I watched as a lad, a far cry from it.

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Ern

Agreed, it seems for the last couple of years all the drama has been off field, I think the ICC have got to get a grip - and settle disputes after a match has ended.

With all the best will in the world - how can an issue as big as what happened here be resolved in a matter of hours, it takes time to get at the truth - so they should take that time (and do a proper job) and let the cricketers get on with playing cricket ON the field.

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Ern