The hearing at Lord's, which lasted from 10.30am to 4.20pm, ended with Illingworth's solicitor, Michael Lawrence, reporting that all charges had been dropped. He said: ``The fine has been rescinded and the costs have gone as well.''

Illingworth added: ``I didn't want to leave the game with a disrepute charge hanging over me. As far as I'm concerned, my name has been cleared.''

The Cricket Council panel was chaired by Judge Desmond Perrett, QC, and also included the former Middlesex captain, J. J. Warr, the former TCCB chairman, Frank Chamberlain, and the chairman of the National Cricket Association, Frank Elliott.

They found that the articles had not put the interests or reputation of cricket at risk and that though the chairman had disclosed confidential selection matters without the Board's permission, this, too, had ``not prejudiced the interests of cricket nor brought the game into disrepute''.

It has been a costly business for the Board in holding two hearings at Lord's. They brought the trouble on themselves by choosing to try their chairman of selectors instead of merely voicing their disapproval that his book, with its free but mild discussion on the events of his three years in office, had come out before his retirement.

Certainly they should have waited until later this month, but the Board would have been on firmer ground if they had not exonerated the England fast bowler, Devon Malcolm, for his own, much more obvious, breach of contract. Malcolm's sensationally presented newspaper articles after the South African tour were fiercely critical of Illingworth's management.

There was wrong on all sides caused by a combination of human greed, media exploitation and administrative incompetence, but it ought to have been a dead issue once Malcolm was told that he had no case to answer. Having broken his tour contract and got away with it, it was a clear injustice for Illingworth to have been fined for a milder breach, as yesterday's verdict implies.