Revenge and domestic politics hobble the ICC
Wisden Cricket Magazine
LYNDON JOHNSON, the former US President, used to say of his enemies that he would rather have them in his tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in. The ICC could do well to heed that advice. At its meeting on March 15-16 in Cape Town it was being drenched by its most celebrated member, and plans to improve Test umpiring suffered from the fall-out.
A worrying fault line now runs through the organisation. India is the economic powerhouse of cricket, and yet the leader of Indian cricket Jagmohan Dalmiya continues to behave like a bear with a sore head, determined to make his successor as president, Malcolm Gray, pay for what Dalmiya sees as Gray’s failure to defend him from the Indian CBI’s investigation into alleged corruption over a television deal.
Back in December Gray and Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, got Dalmiya to back down over playing Virender Sehwag in the Mohali Test against England. Both suggested that the deal demonstrated the power of the ICC executive. But, as a sop to Dalmiya, they had agreed to form a committee to look at how match referees came to decisions and at the procedures Mike Denness had followed when making his controversial decisions in the Port Elizabeth Test that led to Sehwag’s suspension and ignited this powder keg.
They also promised Dalmiya they would consult him when choosing the members of this committee. But Dalmiya made so many objections, proposing names of his own, that Gray and Speed eventually tired of the dispute and invoked their executive power to announce a three-man committee of Majid Khan, Andrew Hilditch and Judge Albie Sachs of South Africa.
Dalmiya’s response was predictable. Using India’s economic clout, sometimes ruthlessly, he got six of the 10 Test-playing countries on his side. Besides India these were Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe — with Pakistan on the fence but leaning towards India. Instead of three wise men he demanded a committee of the ICC’s executive board members.
The intention was to clip the powers of Gray and Speed by taking the issue back to the executive board where Dalmiya has a majority. Gray opposed the plan but in Cape Town he had to give way. A three-man committee of ICC directors — Wes Hall (West Indies), Peter Chingoka (Zimbabwe) and Bob Merriman (Australia) — was formed, with Michael Beloff QC in the chair. It is to be called the Disputes Resolution Committee and, for all the spin of the ICC media men, it is a victory for Dalmiya.
Dalmiya then exploited his victory to deal with a problem in his backyard: the refusal of the Indian government to allow India to play Pakistan. He told Indian journalists that in Cape Town the Indian board had been threatened with expulsion by England and New Zealand if they did not play Pakistan. Both England and New Zealand deny making such a specific threat but Dalmiya is acutely conscious that India’s failure to play Pakistan makes a nonsense of the ICC Test Championship. This is a flaw in his armoury and prevents him from forming the Asian alliance which he wants to use to defeat the west — or England and Australia. By suggesting there is such a threat from within the ICC Dalmiya hopes to persuade the Indian government to allow Tests with Pakistan to resume.
The significance of these Byzantine politics is that they stop the ICC from making clear-sighted decisions on matters of great importance to Test cricket — like umpiring. Cricket’s structure of match officials is now quite absurd. There are two umpires on the field, a third umpire who is consulted on some TV replays and, on top of the pile, comes a match referee. The structure has grown like Topsy and nobody in the ICC seems capable of asking what they are all there for.
The Cape Town meeting should have been the occasion to look at the whole structure of umpiring and how much use should be made of TV replays. But the ICC made only another piecemeal change. It agreed to an experimental system during September’s Champions Trophy tournament in Sri Lanka.
Under the new rules field umpires will be able to consult with the third umpire on any aspect of a decision they are unsure of. Consultation will be optional but, when called for, decisions will be reached as soon as possible. The third umpire will be allowed only two TV replays of any incident before passing information to the field umpire. Line decisions, like stumpings and run-outs, hit wicket and boundary referrals will continue to be decided by the TV umpire, as at present.
The opportunity to have a fundamental look at umpiring issues was missed and the ICC may still pay a heavy price as decisions are questioned and the game is brought into disrepute. The ICC needs to look to its tent.
© Mihir Bose
