Incident took place during 3rd Test in Lahore in 1989; captains and coaches were summoned

Pakistan

Indian cricket team

John Holder

Kapil Dev

Sunil Gavaskar

John Holder, one of the umpires for India’s 1989 tour of, claims players from both sides blatantly scraped and scratched the ball but got away with just a caution.Thethat visited Pakistan in 1989 tampered with the ball and were cautioned for it by the umpires, claims, one of the umpires in the four-Test series.It was the first time in the history of the game that neutral umpires had officiated in international cricket – the other umpire being the late John Hampshire, also of England. Speaking exclusively to this correspondent, Holder, 73 and now retired, said: “Both Pakistan and India did it (tampering with the ball) in the series.” He named “Imran (Khan, the then Pakistani captain), Wasim (Akram),, I think (Manoj) Prabhakar” as “doing it.”He added that the ball tampering was quite blatant. “A wicket would fall – and in those days the umpires didn’t necessarily get hold of the ball after every over – and the players would just stand there scratching it. And it got to a point where despite what we had to say on the field, we had to get the two captains and the two managers together. We said this is illegal.”Holder said Imran, the Pakistani manager Intikhab Alam, and the Indian captain and manager Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Chandu Borde were summoned by the umpires after the day’s play.He said this happened during the third Test of the series at Lahore. “The pitch at Lahore was such a dead, lifeless thing, it had no grass. It would have been a timeless Test match. There were just big totals. The bowlers in desperation were scratching the ball to try and get something (out of it).”Records show India compiled 509 and Pakistan replied with 699 for five in the only two innings played in the match.Holder, who umpired in eleven Tests and nineteen one-day internationals in a career as a first-class umpire spanning 27 years, said: “The problem was we were powerless, because there were no sanctions we could apply. All the umpires could do was to change the ball for one of similar condition. Later, there was a re-write of the laws and they decided to bring penalty runs in for ball tampering. And then they decided you could ban the bowler from bowling for the rest of the innings.”Referring to the Australian tourists in South Africa getting caught tampering with the ball, Holder said: “With the improvement in TV technology now you are less likely to get away with nonsense like that. So, you really have to be aware of the fact that you’re under intense scrutiny now and so you can easily root it (ball tampering) out in international cricket, because there are so many cameras.”The 1989 series witnessed the then 16-year-old prodigy Sachin Tendulkar’s debut in Tests and is remembered for Sanjay Manjrekar’s magnificent batting performance. India acquitted themselves adequately by holding the more fancied Pakistanis – that too away – to a draw.Holder said the “Pakistanis have got the worst reputation without a doubt (about ball tampering).” t flummoxed many as to what occurred during India’s 1982-83 visit to Pakistan, when the likes of Imran and Sarfraz Nawaz were bending the old ball prodigiously.In the second Test at Karachi, the former clean bowled Gundappa Viswanath with an in-swinging delivery that curved in from almost the edge of the pitch. India lost the series 3-1; and with itthe Indian captaincy.The ousted skipper, generally a prolific run-getter, experienced abelow average series and admitted to this writer at the time that he could not put a finger on what might have been going on with the ball. Kapil Dev, who succeeded him, expressed puzzlement over how Imran and Sarfraz could be doing so much with worn out leather in seemingly unhelpful conditions.Mohinder Amarnath, though, in the form of his life, weathered the storm with three remarkable hundreds in the six-Test encounter.A few months later, when continuing in the same vein in the West Indies, he was convivially approached by Vivian Richards one evening at a cocktail party in Port of Spain. The redoubtable Antiguan batsman remarked to the effect: “I take my hats off to you maan for the runs you got in Pakistan.” Amarnath bashfully acknowledged the compliment.The West Indian maestro, conspicuously, recorded a solitary century in nine Test appearances in Pakistan and narrated that in one instance he asked to see the state of the ball after being unexpectedly beaten by its movement. None of the players and officials mentioned above responded to calls and text messages sent seeking their reaction to Holder’s claims.The Barbados born former Hampshire cricketer, Holder, made another startling disclosure. “I had a Test match in ’91at The Oval, England-West Indies, where on the Saturday morning of the Test match I caught the England boys scratching the ball again; and I had a chat with the captain (Graham Gooch) about it and reported it to the (England & Wales Cricket) Board and nothing happened.A month later, the season had ended and we got our letters and so on and I was told I was removed from the Test panel. No explanation, just removed from the Test panel. In fact, after that Test match I didn’t umpire a Test match for 10 years.”Holder accused the English authorities of a “cover-up” for denying he had reported England for ball tampering. He maintained he had written it down in the “top column of the (umpire’s) match report” to Tony Brown, the umpires’ manager.A spokesman for the ECB said: “We can’t offer a meaningful comment on this. It pre-dates the formation of the organisation (meaning it happened in the ECB’s previous incarnation of Test and County Cricket Board).”