THE Oxford Dictionary describes the adjective "fair" as just, equitable; in accordance with the rules.

It is a definition ECB chiefs will do well to bear in mind once they sit down to hear Kent's appeal against a pitch panel decision to dock the county eight points.

The stark fact that the Maidstone Festival Week match with Gloucestershire was completed with 33 wickets falling inside a mere 187.2 overs leaves the pitch exposed as an obvious target.

And yes, this was a greener Mote surface than most Kent players have seen since the introduction of covered wickets, but surely ECB pitch liaison officers Tony Pigott and David Hughes ought to have taken mitigating facts into account before making their hasty judgement.

Since Kent first played at The Mote in 1859 not once, to the best of my knowledge, has the pitch ever been deemed poor, in fact, barely five years ago I suggested in these columns that the Maidstone square ought to be dug up and re-laid, so dominant had the bat become over the ball here.

This year's pitch may well have been slightly damper than its predecessors, yet it was the same for both sides and produced a fascinating, albeit short, game of cricket.

No player was hit or injured by balls rearing from an untrustworthy surface in fact, the only damage caused by the game's brevity were to Kent's gate receipts.

As it happened Kent won the toss and took seven wickets before opening day lunch, but the toss could equally well have gone Chris Taylor's way.

It must also be said Gloucestershire batted like a side that had lost their three previous four-day games.

Did Mr Pigott and Co take account of the fact that Matt Windows padded up, or Taylor failed to move his feet and that Phil Weston played all around an in-swinger?

Indeed opening bat Weston trooped off glaring at the pitch, his was the first wicket to fall and yet the surface played little or no part in his demise. Maybe it was Weston's head shaking and disparaging glances that sealed Gloucestershire's mindset that there must be demons in the pitch?

When Kent produce video evidence of the wickets that fell in this match to the appeal, their tapes will show that the hosts also batted badly on day two.

Joe Denly played on, Martin van Jaarsveld drove to cover and Darren Stevens uppishly back to the bowler.

Justin Kemp was caught on the crease, while Andrew Hall and Niall O'Brien sliced drives to gully and point respectively and Simon Cook was stumped, all seemingly regardless of the supposed state of the pitch.

For all these dismissals Mote groundsman Tony Saunders was completely blameless, yet first-year liaison officer Pigott apparently failed to take that into account as he sat in sole judgement on day one.

Neither could Pigott blame Saunders for the weather thrown at Maidstone the previous weekend; a hot Friday followed by a wet weekend at a time when the additional sheeting and covers Saunders may well have wanted were at The Nevill as Kent, thanks to the ECB's own fixture list, hosted back-to-back festival weeks.

I agree, this was not the type of Mote surface that Mark Ealham enjoyed when bludgeoning a 44-ball league ton a decade ago, but I fail to see how Pigott's punishment fits the crime.

It is identical to the sentence meted out to Surrey for two cases of ball tampering within 20 minutes during last month's game against Nottinghamshire.

Not for the first time Surrey's bowlers had been caught, and they even had the gall to close ranks in a bid to retain the guilty bowler's anonymity thereafter.

Yet throughout their pitch panel enquiry Kent were open, transparent and extremely hospitable to Pigott and later Hughes and Surrey's former head groundsman Harry Brind.

For Kent to be docked eight points, the same Surrey were deducted for flouting the laws and disdainfully keeping mum, cannot be fair, just or equitable.

The fact that it remains within the rules merely leads me to believe that the laws and playing regulations need to be amended and the power available to pitch liaison officers drastically reduced.

This season ECB chiefs have, following criticism of the substantial daily rates paid out to their pitch panel advisors, asked their officers to be more up front in their dealings with the media.

Yet after the two-hour panel Pigott offered a 15 second statement and refused to take supplementary questions. Where is the transparency in that?

No wonder ex-players and former administrators are queuing up to get aboard the gravy train by securing one of these jobs for the boys.

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