Pakistan press backs cricket walkout

Commentators in Pakistan back their cricket team's refusal to take the field against England in protest against umpire Darrell Hair's decision to penalise them for ball tampering.

In their sports columns, one former Pakistan captain says the Australian umpire is "universally" felt by sub-continent players to be "biased", while another describes him as a "mini Hitler".

One paper concedes that Mr Hair "might have seen something wrong", but says that even so, he should have come up with proof.

RAMIZ RAJA IN THE NATION

The star of the show definitely was umpire Darrell Hair, but as a villain of the piece… Players from the sub-continent universally feel that he is biased… Pakistan… were in their right to protest… Will it be the end of the road for [Hair]? If it is, it would not be a day too soon. But it is indeed sad that it has taken such a huge incident to remove a distasteful bully from the scene.

SARFRAZ NAWAZ IN DIN

It was inappropriate to protest after more than one hour and if they had decided not to field, then why did they come? … Bob Woolmer is an English person and he has favoured [England] to send the team back into the ground.

IMRAN KHAN IN THE NATION

Hair is one of those characters when he wears the white umpire's coat, he metamorphoses into a mini Hitler… During my career I have seen such umpires who go out of their way to make their authority felt. They are umpiring fundamentalists. Such characters court controversy.

AQIB JAVED IN DIN

Technically as per [the] International Cricket Council's rules Pakistan has lost the match.

SHAHED SADULLAH IN THE NEWS

The dice has been too heavily loaded in favour of one side against the other… Hair excelled himself, even by his own unfathomable standards… It is seriously time to examine the possibility of taking this man to a court of law… Enough is enough. The Darrell Hair problem now has to be addressed and it does not look as if there is much hope that ICC will do so.

KHALID HUSSAIN IN THE NEWS

It took a ball tampering allegation from the infamous Darrell Hair to add drama to an otherwise dead rubber.

INTIKHAB ALAM IN THE DAILY TIMES

[Current Pakistan captain] Inzamam should have taken the decision of leaving the ground at that very moment when the umpires decided to change the ball or either he should have kept on playing because Pakistan were in the winning position… Umpire Darrell Hair must have seen something wrong but he should have come up with proof.

ALEX BROWN IN THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

The 76-Test career of the Australian cricket umpire Darrell Hair is under threat following Pakistan's refusal to play future matches in which he is officiating.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Vietnam coach sacked over scandal

An assistant to Vietnam's national football coach has been sacked by his club over a match-fixing scandal.

Le Thuy Hai was dismissed by the Danang club for failing to prevent players in his charge allegedly fixing results.

Four players have already been arrested after an investigation into matches at December's South East Asia Games.

Le Thuy Hai, one of three assistants to national coach Alfred Riedl of Austria, has been heavily criticised in the media over the scandal.

He was sacked for "not having carried out his responsibilities in management and education of players in the Danang club who took part in negative acts", said the popular newspaper Sports Vietnam.

"Mr Hai has seriously hurt the reputation of Danang football club and of the city as a whole among fans and sponsors," it said.

Gambling banned

The allegations are the latest in a series of bribery and gambling scandals to hit Vietnamese football.

Mr Hai 's predecessor, Nguyen Thanh Vinh, was arrested in November over allegations of match-fixing.

The latest scandal revolves around a semi-final match with Burma, which Vietnam won 1-0.

According to state-controlled newspapers, some of the players were paid 20 million dong (US$1,300) by local bookmakers to make sure Vietnam did not win by more than one goal.

The bookmakers were able to offer attractive odds on various bigger winning margins, and profit from a guaranteed result.

Gambling is widespread in Vietnam, despite being banned, and millions of dollars often change hands over football matches.

More than 20 referees, coaches and officials are currently facing charges of match-fixing in the past year.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Toil and triumph at Radio Hill

Wednesday, 19 June, 2002, 15:05 GMT 16:05 UK Toil and triumph at Radio Hill
The sense of isolation was liberating for volunteers
Entering the remote Ankasa rainforest for the first time was strangely reminiscent of driving into New York.

A red earth track parts the trees and forms a straight avenue that left us looking up in wonder at the towering outgrowths on either side.

I was here to visit a remote clearing – a few hours trek into the forest – where Raleigh International was building a ranger camp to help Ghana's under-resourced Wildlife Division police the reserve more effectively.

Arriving late in the afternoon with no prospect of reaching the site before nightfall, we set up our mosquito nets with the wildlife rangers on the doorstep of a natural "architectural" wonder that would put Grand Central Station to shame – Bamboo Cathedral.

A forest path opens out on to the side of a small valley where vast bamboo plants form a nave-like chamber, pierced by shafts of light.

A river runs along the valley floor and looking along it more antechambers can be seen stretching into the distance.

Colonies of ants

It was an awesome sight and we visited twice; once in the evening and again early the next day just as the first rays of light were filtering through the canopy.

Later that morning we set off in a tractor-trailer, down a muddy track to the drop-off point from where we would hike to the building site, 14 kilometres into the forest.

Half an hour into the journey we were halted by a fallen tree blocking the track, forcing us to abandon the trailer and shoulder our rucksacks – while our porters hoisted the group's supplies on to their heads.

It was a relief when we finally left the track and branched off into the humid forest itself, out of the sun.

Here we walked in single file, led by a Wildlife Division ranger.

Several times we quickened our step as we crossed colonies of ants on the forest floor.

In the last few minutes of the walk, every huge tree seemed as if it would be the last one we'd be rounding, before we suddenly hit a slight incline, heard the sound of people working and found ourselves at Radio Hill.

Daily life

The last nine weeks have seen Raleigh's volunteers build the site up almost from scratch.

Tree roots and vegetation have been cleared using machetes and saws, timbers have been cut in a portable mill and the group of 14 has worked on everything from the floorboards to the fly screened windows.

Daily life has revolved around building work on the ranger hut and camp duties.

When there was no rainwater, all the site's water needed to be hand-pumped and filtered from a stream 10 minutes' walk away – at the bottom of a hill.

A team of four worked all day on water duty, and after a day of climbing and pumping, they valued every drop.

When rain arrived it usually came in deluges.

But the group stayed dry under tarpaulin tents and as the building developed, in the ranger hut itself.

The real bonus was that the water was collected in a tank and meant a few days off the water rota.

The main connection with the outside world was a shortwave radio set with which regular communications were held with Raleigh's field base in Accra.

Far from being restrictive, the sense of isolation was liberating for many of the volunteers.

Project manager David Morrice summed it up: "The fact that we have been so self-contained has meant that everyone who has worked on this site can look back with an incredible sense of achievement and say 'I built that'."