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Law no.1 of Email Etiquette: Never, ever put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want the whole world to see. Didn’t you know that, Darrell?

Darrell Hair’s botched attempt to negotiate an early retirement package for himself was clumsy and ill-advised. But why has it become everybody’s business?

According to former corporate lawyer Mal Speed, the ICC received three legal opinions saying that it was “required to disclose the correspondence as it was material or relevant to matters that might be raised in the Code of Conduct hearing of Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq.”

But how?

Do the emails provide evidence relating to the charge that member(s) of the Pakistan team tampered with the ball during the Oval Test last Sunday? I don’t think so.

Do the emails provide evidence relating to the charge that Inzamam ul-Haq breached the Players’ Code of Conduct on Sunday by bringing the game into disrepute? I don’t think so.

Do the emails provide any evidence that Hair was attempting to commit an act of extortion or fraud? Speed said yesterday that ICC was “certain they are not the product of dishonest, underhand or malicious intent and believe the contents played no part in Darrell’s decision-making during the fourth Test.”

So what was the reason for making this situation public? If this is meant to be an example of the ICC bending over backwards to display its transparency, then it still needs to convince me of the real reason that they’ve put this into the public domain.

Or was it part of a deal to ensure that Pakistan didn’t pull out of their ODI series with England? A withdrawal which would, in theory, leave the PCB liable for a multi-million dollar fine. Is anybody extorting anybody else in the back room?

And where does the other half of the umpiring team in the Fourth Test, Billy Doctrove, fit into this picture? And, indeed, the match referee Mike Procter?

If there is anything that does still require investigation, it is the circumstances that led to the termination of the Test match a day and a session early. In any major international sporting event, officials should be moving heaven and earth to avoid the premature conclusion of the contest.

But who’s to blame here? The ICC should hold at the very least an internal inquiry into the circumstances of the forfeiture of the Test, regardless of whether or not Inzi is found guilty of the alleged Code of Conduct breach.

If they have already decided to hold one, why haven’t we been told about it? Doesn’t it
deserve the same level of transparency as applied to Darrell Hair’s confidential emails? If they haven’t decided to hold one, that paints an even worse picture of the ICC’s transparency.

Darrell Hair has made some stunningly ill-considered decisions away from the playing field in the past, notably in the publication of a book of memoirs in 1998 - which could quite justifiably have ended his umpiring career there and then. But it’s hard to imagine that his future as an elite umpire is tenable after this disclosure of events.

I find it hard to reach any other conclusion than to say that Hair is being hung out to dry.

Mao Tse-Tung had “The Great Leap Forward”. Darrell Hair had “The Way Forward”. Coincidence?

Read Hair’s email to the ICC entitled “The Way Forward”, and the follow-up emails, at The Times.

This press release from the ICC regarding Sunday’s Contretemps at Kennington arrived in my inbox in the last half-hour. It might be the final word on the Test, but I think there’s still some blood-letting to come. I wonder if the ECB’s insurance covers this type of cancellation:

Andrew Johns is, arguably, the greatest rugby league player of the last decade. As a kid he would, like all sportsminded schoolboys in Australia, have played a bit of cricket at school and over the summer. None of this, however, explains today’s revelation that Johns has been signed up to make two appearances in the New South Wales Twenty20 side for next season.

The decision to include Johns in the side for two games against South Australia (one in his home town of Newcastle on January 7, the other at Stadium Australia on January 10) has, it seems, been approved by the NSW Cricket Board, and confirmed by Cricket NSW chief executive Dave Gilbert. Johns, needless to say, is not one of the Blues’ contracted players for the 2006-07 season.

If this goes ahead, it marks a significant crossing-the-line for cricket between sport and show business. Will we have more Twenty20 matches where teams have their “designated celebrity” in the squad? Who can we expect to see? Socceroos? Wiggles? The cast of Home and Away? Evictees from Big Brother? Hmm, maybe we’ll be asked to SMS the name of the player we want dropped for the next game…

Maybe it’s not as absurd as it sounds. It may well be that the NSW Cricket Board have decided that (a) Twenty20 cricket is not to be taken seriously, and (b) they are aiming for an entirely different spectator base to that for the traditional forms of the game. Adding celebrity involvement to the game could be a way to get more bums on seats, more money at the gate, more revenue for Cricket New South Wales.

Financially it may be a stroke of genius from CNSW chief executive Dave Gilbert. Cricket it’s not, at least proverbially speaking. This will be food for thought in England, where the 2006 Twenty20 Cup kicked off (oops, a football expression there) last night.

This just in from Cricket Australia:

Fifth 3 mobile Ashes Test (SCG) – SOLD OUT

The general public ticket allocation to the Fifth 3 mobile Ashes Test match at the SCG has sold out within 40 minutes this morning.

Tickets all matches in Sydney, including days 1 – 4 of the Test match, went on sale from 9am today through Ticketek (via web, over the phone and through outlets).

A small amount of tickets still remain to the other international matches scheduled for the SCG this summer including:

• Aus v Eng, Twenty20, 9 Jan 2007
• Aus v NZ, ODI, 21 Jan 2007
• Aus v Eng, ODI, 2 Feb
• Second ODI Final

For additional ticketing information, please visit www.cricket.com.au.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is an organisation that “promotes sport”, according to the Indian finance minister.

A wire report carried by various Indian news websites on Wednesday said that the minister in question, SS Planimanickam informed the national upper house, the Rajya Sabha that the BCCI is registered under Section 12A of the Income Tax Act, which provides income tax exemptions for “charitable institutions”.

The BCCI is deemed a charity by virtue of Section 2(15) of the Act, which states that the “promotion of sports and games” is considered to be a “charitable purpose” for the intent of the legislation.

So there you have it. Not only does the BCCI have the purpose of promoting the game of cricket, but it is a charity! File that away for future reference…

I’ve been providing some cheap entertainment for CricInfo readers on the 23 Yards blog over the past week.

Now Amit Varma is one of India’s better known bloggers - I often enjoy reading India Uncut - but his socio-economic world view is, well, a tad different to mine.

Anyway, have a read of the thread in question… I’d love to know if anyone thinks I was barking up the wrong tree.

It’s March 5, 1988 at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Tasmania loses a Sheffield Shield match to New South Wales by eight wickets. Never mind the fact that the NSW team included nine past, present or future Australian internationals, take a look at the Tasmanian lineup, and you’ll see why the Apple Isle was the hotbed of off-field cricketing talent for the 21st century.

There’s Troy Cooley, who last year was the fast bowling coach to the England team and is now working with the Australian team in a similar capacity.

There’s Allister de Winter, who is Bangladesh’s High Performance Manager and will be coaching their Under-19 team in this month’s world cup.

There’s Keith Bradshaw, who has just been appointed as the next CEO of the Marylebone Cricket Club.

And there’s David Boon, future coach, Tasmanian media manager, Australian selector, and now enjoying immortality following the release of the Talking Boony.

Such a talented gathering, and that 1988 match at the SCG was the only time that Bradshaw, Cooley, de Winter and Boon appeared in the same first-class eleven.

Momentous steps forward in the merging of women’s and men’s cricket administration in India were taken on Monday, when the BCCI’s Working Committee met in New Delhi. The title of this post says it all. Today’s The Hindu reports.

Zimbabwe Cricket’s announcement last Wednesday that they were withdrawing from Test cricket for the rest of 2006 was greeted variously with sighs of relief, pats on the back, and gales of laughter. I belonged to that last category.

Consider this: Zimbabwe has withdrawn from Test cricket. They are still playing one-day cricket. They are still free to host ODI series against touring sides. They still have a team in next month’s Under-19 World Cup. Peter Chingoka is still chairman of the board, albeit an “Interim” one. Ovias Bvute is still managing director for Zimbabwe Cricket. Robert Mugabe is still president of the republic.

And Tatenda Taibu is still in Bangladesh.

There would have been sighs of relief from the West Indies Cricket Board, who won’t need to host two inevitably loss-making Test matches against Zimbabwe, but will still have the ODI leg of the tour to cash in on. Brian Lara may not be so happy, as some golden opportunities to add to his world record run tally go begging.

Zimbabwe still has the possibility of playing in this October’s ICC Champions Trophy, if they finish in the top two places of the four-team qualifying event. Nonetheless, they are, to quote Ehsan Mani, “not in a position to be competitive in Test cricket”. Ah yes, the smell of compromise and the stench of money.

Not that the average Zimbabwean sports fan cares all that much about cricket. Tonight, Zimbabwe’s footballers take on Senegal in their opening group match of the African Cup of Nations - after which they play Nigeria and Ghana. Who’s scared of being flogged in international competition again?