© CricInfo
Indian cricket’s strongman is getting stronger, if the decisions
taken at the executive board of the International Cricket Council
(ICC) at Cape Town over the weekend are reliable indicators
Partab Ramchand18-Mar-2002
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© CricInfo |
Indian cricket’s strongman is getting stronger, if the decisions
taken at the executive board of the International Cricket Council
(ICC) at Cape Town over the weekend are reliable indicators. He
has again proved that adopting a tough stance can be profitable.
It doesn’t always work that way though, and Jagmohan Dalmiya
would do well to remember this even as he savours his latest
success in international cricket diplomacy.Whichever way one looks at it, there is little doubt that the
president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has
gained immensely as a result of the deliberations at the Cape
Town meeting. And in the process, Indian cricket too has
benefited. Ever since the Mike Denness controversy surfaced in
November last year, Dalmiya has managed to drive a hard bargain
with the ICC.Perhaps, only a former ICC president could have pushed the game’s
governing body on the backfoot so often within the space of a few
months. And while this approach has won him few friends in the
international cricket fraternity, it has made him a hero of sorts
at home. But Dalmiya must also know when to stop the hard
bargaining and it is hoped that he will be satisfied with the
result of the executive board meeting and now concentrate on the
pressing problems confronting Indian cricket.Dalmiya was expected to test his power at the conclave, where the
most controversial item on the agenda was the issue of a
referees’ commission set up by the ICC to look into the decisions
taken by Denness during India’s tour of South Africa. Since then,
the BCCI and the ICC have been at loggerheads over the
controversy. But instead of buckling down, Dalmiya took the ICC
head on.With both parties determined to score a point, at one time a
split seemed on the cards, especially after India received
backing on the issue from the Asian Cricket Council last month.
When South Africa made it clear that they would back India, the
ICC, however, had to back down or risk half its members forming a
breakaway group.Matters came to a head with Dalmiya rejecting the ICC appointed
referees commission to go into the Denness controversy and
subsequent measures to be taken in this regard. He made it clear
that India would “refrain from participating in the commission in
any form or manner”.He objected to the three-member commission comprising Majid Khan
(Pakistan) and Andrew Hilditch (Australia) and former judge Albie
Sachs of South Africa. He achieved his objective when the ICC
scrapped the appointed commission and put in its place a Disputes
Resolution Committee.The new panel is headed by Michael Beloff, who is to succeed Lord
Hugh Griffiths as chairman of the ICC’s Code of Conduct
commission. The other members are the Zimbabwe Cricket Union
chairman Peter Chingoka, the West Indies Cricket Board president
Wesley Hall and their Australian counterpart Bob Merriman. The
scrapping of the old commission and the appointment of a new one
is largely being perceived in cricketing circles as a victory for
Dalmiya and why not?
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© Reuters |
The importance of being Jagmohan Dalmiya was also driven home by
the fact that before official business was conducted at Cape
Town, ICC president Malcolm Gray met with Dalmiya in a bid to
calm ruffled feathers. The diplomatic process had actually
started with the visit of Merriman and Hall to Kolkata recently
where they met the BCCI president.The Cape Town meeting also accepted a report prepared by ICC
Chief Executive Officer Malcolm Speed, to revise the role of
match referees. In future, the onus will be on umpires to lay
disciplinary charges, which will then be referred to referees to
hold a hearing, a point of view Dalmiya will not hold anything
against.Also, there will be a right of appeal against referees’ decisions
for more serious disciplinary offences, again a suggestion
Dalmiya has advocated. In addition, referees have been given the
authority to explain their decisions to the media, something that
is currently denied to them under existing regulations. This way,
at least the kind of farcical press conferences held by Denness
at the height of the controversy will be a thing of the past.The new committee will review the detailed procedures followed by
Denness in disciplining the six Indian players. In addition, a
new disciplinary code was agreed upon by the Executive Board,
with the aim of achieving greater consistency in the application
of cricket discipline. There will now be four levels of code
breaches, with recommended minimum and maximum penalties.According to Speed, the new disciplinary code would be an
important tool for the recently convened panels of ICC umpires
and referees to work with. While lamenting the declining
standards of on-field behaviour and admitting that there has been
inconsistency in the way it has been dealt with in the past,
Speed was firmly of the view that the new system establishes very
clear penalties for misbehaviour, so there can be no
misinterpretation by either the players or officials concerned.
The new disciplinary code is scheduled for introduction from the
beginning of next month.However, there was apparently little Dalmiya could do to reverse
the status of the third Test between India and South Africa at
Centurion. The ruling to strip the game of its official status
was upheld unanimously, according to a statement issued after the
meeting. Speed’s decision that South Africa won what became a
two-match series by 1-0 was confirmed.Obviously heaving a sigh of relief, Gray said that while the
matter had been a major issue for the ICC and its members over
the past five months, “it is a significant achievement that a
solution has been reached by all directors that is both businesslike and practical.”One thing is certain. The deliberations at Cape Town succeeded in
defusing a potential crisis that at one point looked set to cause
a split in the game’ governing body. Perhaps one should refrain
from being over-optimistic but the hope is that the problem has
been solved and cricket can move on ahead.Former Pakistan captain and ICC referee Asif Iqbal perhaps summed
up the scenario best when he said on the eve of the meeting,”Gray
and Speed are capable people and have the best interests of the
game in mind, while Dalmiya will respect the ICC as the parent
body.” The Cape Town conclave achieved a lot towards averting a
crisis. It is now time for the concerned parties to bury the
hatchet, turn their back on ego clashes and concentrate on
improving the image of the game which has taken a beating of
late.
