Wasim Raja, the former Pakistan batsman who went on to become an ICC match referee, has died while playing for Surrey Over 50s at Marlow in Buckinghamshire. He was 54. “Wasim had a big heart attack on the field,” a Surrey spokesman told Cricinfo. “He felt dizzy, and mentioned this to the slips, saying that he felt he had to go off. He was carried off but then collapsed on the boundary.”

That was part of the Cricinfo report on Wasim Raja. Amid the sadness of the incident emerges this rare picture of a cricketer dying in harness. Very few people are fortunate enough to die doing a job they love deeply. I am not aware of the stats but presumably for a cricketer such a death is far more unlikely than, say, for a business executive.

Barring accidents, most sportsmen retire long before health check-ups find their way into packed monthly schedules. Wasim Bari was 54 and It was no time to leave, really. It is not even the retirement age in other 9-to-5 professions. But…..can we view this incident from another perspective?

Well well well. This is incredible. For anyone not watching Sky Sports at the moment, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. About midway through the second session, umpires Darell Hair and Billy Doctrove switched the cricket ball and awarded England 5 penalty runs. The implication being that Pakistan have been tampering with the ball. It’s a very serious accusation, and there is currently no video footage to prove or disprove it.

The players then came off for Bad Light and took an early tea. David Gower, Beefy and Athers did their usual commentary on the whole debacle, but it was agreed that until there was some sort of statement from the match referee or the Umpires, then they couldn’t say a lot more.

Like Matt said, the fourth test at The Oval was awarded to England after the umpires, Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove, reasoned that by not taking the field post-tea Pakistan had conceded the game.

A joint statement by the ICC, ECB and PCB revealed that the umpires didn’t come out when Pakistan did because in their opinion, the game was over. So why didn’t they pull out the stumps when they left the field? Like I pointed out yesterday, flicking off the bails doesn’t mean game up.

Mark Boucher sports a boyish look but hides a bit of steel within. Besides bringing joy to South African cricket supporters, the gutsy wicketkeeper’s countenance can also take eighties moviegoers to the days of Michael J Fox when he played the teenaged Marty McFly in ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy.

How badly I want a refresher of that fun-loaded movie series now that Boucher has lived upto his McFly resemblance right up to the ‘Nobody calls me chicken’ bit.

South Africa have pulled out of the rain tournament following the bomb blast in Colombo a couple of days ago.

It is the right thing to do. As a cricket fan, I’m obviously sad. As a blogger, I’m probably happy that I don’t need to write about some very meaningless games.

But human lives are far more important, more important than cricket. All this talk on the lines of “Blasts and terrorism are part of daily life. We ought not to be cowed down. The terrorists should not win. They won’t target cricketers anyway” is just plain bull excreta.