All of the fault lies with the ICC. The umpires are employed by the ICC to ump the match in accordance with the laws, which is exactly what they did. The umps don't have any alternative - it is not within their job description to agree to waive the laws if they choose to.

Any appeal process would not involve the umps, but should have been made directly from the Pakistani team hierarchy to the match referee (not the 3rd umpire), who is the official representative of the ICC. That office clearly failed to deal with the matter at the time, with all the resulting confusion and controversy. Darell Hair has been the object of criticism since then, mainly because of the ICC's failure to clarify the situation. I think he has a claim against them, but that is a different matter.

In an ideal world, the ICC should have had an announcement made to the crowd immediately the match was forfeited, and to say that they were considering whether or not to uphold the forfeiture - if in fact they really were considering that. That way it would have been clear that the umpires' actions were clearly correct and would have taken the umps completely out of the firing line.

As to the ball tampering, surely the umps knew that their joint decision would be inflammatory, and that they would get a lot of stick out of it. So why would they volunteer for all the trouble unless they had some reason - what else was in it for them?

cheers, Terry