LONDON (CMC):

LEGENDARY WEST Indies fast bowler Michael Holding has thrown his support behind Pakistan in the current ball-tampering case citing "First World hypocrisy".

Holding also feels it was wrong for the umpires to penalise the Pakistanis without first giving them a warning.

"Most other umpires would have said something to the captain, given the offending team a warning of some kind, and then if the tampering continued, they would have been totally justified in taking action," Holding wrote in India Today, a leading weekly news magazine on the sub-continent.

"I have absolute and all sympathy with Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul Haq. If you label someone a cheat, please arrive with the evidence."

Holding added that "First World hypocrisy" was to blame for the present crisis.

"There is a double standard at work in cricket and this episode has only highlighted it," he wrote.

"When England used reverse swing to beat the Australians in the 2005 Ashes, everyone said it was great skill.

Skullduggery

"When Pakistan does it, the opposite happens and no one thinks it is great skill. Everyone associates it with skullduggery.

"When bombs go off in Karachi and Colombo everyone wants to go home. When bombs go off in London, no one says anything."

Holding was not surprised by the support that Hair was receiving in his native Australia.

"Today, Hair is being defended in Australia, but that is just a matter of friends sticking together, the Aussies defending an Australian umpire," he said.

"Everyone now citing the cricketing law as the absolute and final truth is talking absolute rubbish. Every law has room for flexibility.

"I read a prime example recently in the British press. It said that by law, you can be fined for parking within the yellow lines in England.

"If you do that to run into a chemist to buy emergency medicines, a sensible policeman would more than likely tell you about the law, but it's unlikely a ticket would be forthcoming."

Inzamam has been charged under the International Code of Conduct with bringing the game into disrepute after he and his side refused to take the field in the fourth and final Test against England recently at the Oval.