Inzamam-ul-Haq, captain of the Pakistan cricket team has been cleared on charges of ball tampering but has suspended from Pakistan’s next f four one day international matches (ODI) after the chief match referee of the International Cricket Council, Ranjan Madugalle found him guilty of the charge of bringing the game into disrepute.

The charge stems back to the Fourth Test against England at The Oval in August when the Pakistan side refused to play after the tea interval on the fourth day’s play after they had been penalised five runs for ball tampering during the middle session of the day’s play.

In response, the umpires in charge of the match, Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove called the game off and declared England the winner by forfeit, a first in Test cricket.

As the umpires and match referee could not pinpoint which player they believe had done the tampering, under the laws of cricket Inzamam as captain was charged.

The fallout since the incident has been huge in the cricket world. Inzamam and the Pakistan Cricket Board went on the attack almost immediately, demanding the Australian Hair not umpire Pakistan matches in future and labelling Hair a racist following a number of run-ins with Asian teams over his long career.

Hair, in turn, has been vigorously defended by ICC CEO Malcolm Speed, Cricket Australia and members of the Australian cricket team, including captain Ricky Ponting, who himself has had some run-ins with the umpires in recent weeks.

As the hearing began at The Oval on Wednesday, leading cricket news site cricinfo.com claimed that Hair and Doctrove initially disagreed as to whether the ball should be changed, Doctrove wanting to wait a couple more overs to see if any further damaged occurred. The pair would later agree to change the ball and Hair awarded England five penalty runs for ball tampering. Pakistan were also alleging that ICC referee for the match, Mike Proctor did not properly inform Pakistan team management that the match had forfeited after Proctor had been informed by the umpires.

After a hearing that had been held behind closed doors, an ICC spokesman addressed the media on Thursday to read a statement from Mr Madugalle’s decision to clear Inzamam of the charge ball tampering but to find him guilty of the charge of disrepute as a result of the Pakistani protest. Mr Madugalle suspended Inzamam from Pakistan’s first four matches of the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy tournament in India next month.

Speaking on Pakistan TV, Inzamam said that he felt vindicated after being cleared of the ball tampering charge and would not appeal against his four-match ban. He said: "The whole nation has supported our decision. This was a matter of respect for our team and country. We fought for what we thought was right. The team's reputation in the past hasn't been great and so this was important. It was important to register our protest because if we didn't then it wouldn't have gotten this far. Now it has been proved we are not guilty of ball tampering. This is a victory for Pakistan.

"I had an idea that I would face some sort of ban. This is a most lenient ban and I will not appeal against it."

The ban given to Inzamam was the lightest that could have been handed down by Madugalle. The penalties available on this type of charge range from a ban of two to four Test matches or four to eight ODIs.