With the release by the ICC of the email exchanges in which Darrell Hair offered to quit for half a million dollars, an escape route from chaos has emerged.

Like miners trapped down a shaft, with canaries dropping dead around them, Pakistan and the ICC must have been wondering where the rescue party was coming from.

It came in the portly shape of a pick axe wielding Darryl Hair with his ransom email cracking some light into the shaft of chaos these issues have degenerated into. Little did Hair suspect, when carefully composing his half million dollar exit fee request, that he was in effect making the poorest decision in his umpiring career. Bringing hard currency to the table in matters of law, principal and honour is a foolhardy ploy in any walk of life.

The decision by Malcolm Speed to release Hair’s correspondence before the hearing has nothing to do with transparency and everything to do with strategy. Suddenly OJ’s hand fits the glove. b that the ICC would leave Hair out to dry following the nugget of a deal offered by Woolmer, but never did I imagine that they would do so in such spectacular circumstances.

Hair’s career is over, and no matter the outcome of any eventual hearing, he will forever be remembered as the villain in this modern day tragedy. His blindside proposal has usurped the need for the ICC to demonstrate that they were capable of resolving this mess and provided the path of least resistance. For that alone I resent Hair’s actions immensely. Ovalgate will now go down in history as the time when a fat umpire held the ICC to ransom for half a million bucks instead of a time when the ICC was forced to make a decision of substance on a matter of significance.

Despite the solution that Hair’s inappropriate request will undoubtedly bring, for the sake of natural balance I hope that amidst the rush of excitement someone with a microphone solicits a response from Mr Speed on the ethics of releasing Hair’s emails prior to the hearing.

When the eventual hearing takes place, the ICC can now afford to give Inzamam nothing more than a slap on the wrist, a small fine and perhaps a small ban. The ball tampering allegation will disappear as fast as umpire Hair’s credibility and life will go on as before albeit with a missing member of the elite panel.

Conspiracy theories will no doubt abound with suggestions that Hair’s actions on the field were all part of some master plan to cash up from the game and they are of course nonsense.

Ovalgate has been a succession of poor decisions culminating in a distasteful request. Nothing more, nothing less.