More power for the referee?

After the controversy at The Oval, there have been reports that the match referee could decide on forfeitures in future matches. Currently, the umpires decide if and when a match has been forfeited by a captain.

According to an interview in The Guardian, Jayantha Dharmadasa, president of Sri Lanka Cricket, will raise the issue with the International Cricket Council. Dharmadasa claims that such a move would be widely supported in the cricketing world.

In the forfeiture at The Oval, umpires Billy Doctrove and Darrell Hair ruled that the Test match had been forfeited by Pakistan skipper Inzamama-ul-Haq.

It has been speculated that the match referee, Mike Proctor, was negotiating with the Pakistani team to resume the match but this plan was halted by the decision to award the match to England.