But Friday was another level altogether. When Darrell asked for the US$500,000 ( 392,000) to walk away from umpiring I was completely shattered and amazed. I can't believe what has happened. I don't know what's possessed him to do that either. It's a hell of a lot of money and how he can demand that sort of money, I really don't know.

He's talking about stress in terms of the money he's asked for. Well, everybody gets stressed. Everybody umpiring gets stress all around the world. What's umpiring test matches? Well that's the definition of stress.

But you've got to be able to handle this if you're in that line of work and the other thing is that nobody else can give you stress but yourself.

You can only bring it on yourself. Darrell felt a bit stressed and therefore I was surprised at that because knowing him as I do, he's a very very strong character. So as I said, I'm stunned, shocked and amazed.

Now it's opened up another can of worms and this is just going to go on and on and I really don't know where it's going to end. That can only be very, very sad for cricket and cricket has been very badly hurt by all of this.

It is a real tragedy. Personally, I feel it's a great shame that the test match didn't finish. That's what I would have tried to do, then get everyone in a room after the test had finished and thrash it out and get the damn truth out of it all. Finish it there and then and sort it all out and by doing that there'd be none of these repercussions. But now all the dirty washing has been hung out and as I say it's very very sad for the game.

Going back to last Sunday and the ball-tampering allegations, what I will say is that you have got to be 100 per cent certain because it's a very serious claim. It's in the realms of cheating. In this day and age with the advertising boards around the pitch, well when the ball keeps hitting those all day and when it comes back, the ball is scuffed. Also, The Oval pitch was amazingly hard and dry after the summer and when the ball keeps being bowled off this and pitching hard on it, just like (Danish) Kaneria bowling into left-handers' rough, that too will scuff a cricket ball up. So because of all these things you've got to be certain that someone is doctoring the ball. If you aren't then you are walking on thin ice as Darrell has found out this past week.

Initially you'd think Darrell Hair may have seen something happen or somebody up to something with the ball but if that's the case why hasn't he come out and said that?

He's mentioned nothing and quite a bit of time has passed now. The other thing people have said is Hair has been unfair to Pakistan and the other Asian countries in his past, something Darrell has firmly denied but I can't comment on it and I never will because I have never been there when all of these alleged incidents took place.

From Pakistan's point of view, well every captain has report sheets and I think the way to do it is to wait until after the test match and then when it's all over, sit down and what you have to say then goes in front of the ICC (International Cricket Council) so I don't know how it's all gone wrong. But the Pakistan team were clearly very upset by the whole incident and that drove them to do what they did. From Inzamam(-ulHaq)'s perspective, looking back at it now, I think he would have preferred to finish the game. But knowing Inzamam as I know him, he's a very nice chap, he's a good man and a very very fair and honest man. So it isn't nice to see him caught up in all of this and to be involved in what's happened.

In 50 years in the game as a player and an umpire I've never seen anything like this.

There's always been controversy in cricket. Always has been, always will be, but I've never seen anything go so far and take so many turns for the worse. How are all the sides involved going to get to the bottom of this? I don't know but cricket will rise above this. The only thing is that it will take quite a while.