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NO APPEAL: In his press conference Dalmiya
(above) harped on the fact that there was no provision for players
pulled up by the referee to have their cases reviewed. He was also
critical of the fact that Denness did not take action against Pollock
(below) for a code of conduct violation.
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The punishment
meted out to Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh,
Shiv Sundar Das and Deep Dasgupta was discussed in the Lok Sabha. The Government
was uneasy about backing the BCCI president because it did not want to be
drawn into a patently Dalmiya sideshow, but the ferocious public response
left it with no alternative. In South Africa, it took pressure from the
country's highest office to push the UCB into playing Dalmiya's game. President
Thabo Mbeki was briefed by Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour at a Cabinet
meeting on Thursday. Mbeki was disturbed to learn that there had been an
uproar in the Indian Parliament over the issue and that there were demonstrations
at South African missions in Delhi and Mumbai. And more so since the issue
was being given racial connotations. He reportedly told Balfour that the
South African Government could not afford to upset India and said, "Fix
this. Whatever happens, India must play the final Test." Balfour spent
the day telling UCB CEO Gerald Majola that he had no choice but to take
on the ICC and have Denness removed.
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The ICC's Match Referee
Post of Contention
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Heeding calls for unburdening umpires of the
responsibility of being the sole enforcers of good conduct on the
field, the ICC took action in December 1993. It created the post
of match referee, making the individual responsible, along with
the captains and umpires, for upholding and enforcing the ICC code
of conduct. The match referee's panel is composed of 19 former Test
cricketers from all the Test-playing nations, including two Indian
representatives, Hanumant Singh and Gundappa Viswanath. Initially
seen as a "jobs for the boys" kind of posting, the ICC
has now decided that it will appoint a panel of five permanent match
referees next season to be picked by ICC President Malcolm Grey,
Sunil Gavaskar and Ranjan Madugalle of Sri Lanka. Many believe Denness'
actions in South Africa are a way of strengthening his bid for selection
as a no nonsense referee.
Post-match fixing, the ICC has tried to give
the impression that it is more professional than in the past. It
has also begun to include players from outside the Anglo-Australian
group on key panels. Gavaskar, for example, is the chairman of the
ICC's cricket committee that concerns itself with the technical
aspects of the game. Pakistan's Ehsan Mani is the chairman of the
finance and marketing committee. Last year, the ICC introduced the
clause featuring the "Spirit of the Game" in the rule
book. This puts a great degree of responsibility on captains to
maintain decorum on the field. In June, at the end of its AGM, the
ICC announced a clamp-down on bad behaviour, asking match referees
to be strict about bad conduct. Two months ago, it even unveiled
a brand-new logo. Today, the world body faces the prospect of either
a bitter divide or total irrelevance.
Oblivious of the consternation he had caused
in world cricket, Dalmiya's im perious comment was, "We have
only tried to save the game of cricket."
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The UCB contacted the Zimbabwe Cricket Board and sought support in case
matters came to a head at Lord's. The Zimbabweans agreed to back the UCB,
while Sri Lanka and Pakistan announced support for India. The only full
member countries left on the other side of the fence then were England,
Australia and the West Indies. The UCB was reassured that by late evening
Dalmiya agreed to climb down on a review of the bans and a suspension
of the suspensions, as it were, but had only a one-point agenda: Mike
Denness.
A UCB member told India Today, "Had there not been pressure from
the Government, the UCB would have probably expressed its regrets and
left it to the BCCI to take the step of pulling out of the tour. We are
the hosts of the next ICC World Cup and cannot afford to completely antagonise
the ICC."
Cricket's governing body-once the Imperial Cricket Conference-is 93
years old. It has a council of 10 full members (the 10 Test-playing countries),
26 associate members (smaller nations with well-organised cricket) and
38 affiliate members (places where the ICC regards cricket as played according
to its laws). The Executive Board, which takes decisions on matters like
the status of a game, is made up of 10 full members, three associate members
and chairmen of three main committees. At Kolkata, Dalmiya bragged that
he had the support of 10 Executive Board members should a confrontation
arise.
The ICC's rules against bad behaviour on the field of play mean well,
but their execution is as transparent as lead, as judicious as kangaroo
courts and as evenly distributed as the world's resources-25 per cent
of the teams seem to get 75 per cent of its punishments.
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Mike Denness
Book Worm
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 Denness
who? If it wasn't for November 20, not many people would remember
an unassuming English batsman who did not let his non-cricketing
Scottish genes deter him from rising to become England captain.
Then, once he became skipper, he did not think it unleaderlike to
drop himself from a Test match. But perhaps nothing he did was more
unconventional in a game ruled by genteel conventions than to put
in the stock six cricketers at the end of the Test match at Port
Elizabeth last Tuesday.
That Denness, 61, would pronounce so harsh
a judgement on a bunch of overenthusiastic cricketers was perhaps
presaged by his dour, orthodox batting in the middle order for England.
Though he and his partner Brian Luckhurst at Kent were acknowledged
to be the best opening pair in England in the early 1970s, Denness'
flair as an England batsman was leaden at best. In 28 Tests, he
accumulated 1,667 runs at an average of 39.69 with four centuries.
His averages were dented severely by Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson
in Australia in 1974-75, when despairing of poor form he dropped
himself from the fourth Test. He toured India in 1972-73 and played
the Indians in a home series in 1974-75, scoring 546 runs in eight
matches. As captain of England in 19 Tests, he won six matches and
lost five. He was Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1975, the year
he led England in the first Prudential World Cup.
After he retired from first-class cricket
in 1980, he dabbled in various cricket-related activities until
the ICC empanelled him as a match referee in 1995. Before the Indian
and South African boards ganged up on him, he was the keeper of
the game's spirit in 12 Tests and 32 one-day internationals, preferring
generally to keep a low profile. He only came out of his shell in
April this year to reprimand Herschelle Gibbs of South Africa for
protesting against his dismissal in a Test against the West Indies
at Antigua. His Caribbean adventure possibly aroused the old-world
cricketer in him, and he decided not to suffer antics like running
the index finger around the seam-or yelling loud and long.
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Denness has inadvertently made the best case for change. Going by the
book, Tendulkar, no matter what his motive, did "act on the match
ball", Sehwag did "use abusive language", "charge
the umpire" and "show dissent", as did the other three
minor offenders, Singh, Dasgupta and Das. And in allowing all of them
to do so, Ganguly did not fulfil his role as the chief upholder of the
"spirit of the game". But as emphatically, Denness chose to
react rather than act, pick punishment over prevention and chose to play
executioner rather than caretaker. When the news of the screaming headlines
and shrill media coverage began to trickle into Port Elizabeth, Denness
was shaken. He told a friend, "I did not think this would blow up
so quickly."
Ball-tampering usually involves roughing up one side of the old ball,
either by picking its seam and scuffing its surface with finger nails
or with bottle tops to make it swing more than normal. If spotted, it
is considered a low form of gamesmanship, unspotted it is a fine art that
every fast bowler is quick to learn. When Tendulkar was seen working his
fingers around the seam, former English bowler Robin Jackman chirped,
"You're not supposed to do that, you naughty boy." Many refused
to believe the Indian was up to mischief. But Australian captain Steve
Waugh was emphatic. "If you do something wrong, you have to be pulled
up for it," he said. The Indians said Tendulkar was only cleaning
the mud and bits of grass wedged into the seam. Other than the blazing
batsman's squeaky-clean reputation as a cricketer, there was, his defenders
said, another reason why he couldn't pick the seam with his fingernails-he
hasn't got any. He's a compulsive nail-biter.
The rest of the Indians were punished for their appealing during the
partnership between South African captain Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis:
Sehwag, in particular, had appealed for a catch off Kallis at silly point,
headed for the umpire and swore on being turned down. That is contravening
the "spirit of the game", attempting to intimidate the umpire
and using abusive language, all rolled into one.
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THE MENACE: There were protests in the streets
and in Parliament in India
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Tendulkar couldn't
be picking the seam; he has no nails, being a nail-biter.
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Here comes the thin ice: if Sehwag contravened the spirit of the game,
then the operatic appealing of Pollock when Das got a loud inside edge
onto his pad should have at least attracted a lecture about captains setting
better examples.It was either intimidatory or excessive and, going by
the 2000 code that Denness has read very thoroughly, not the way for a
captain to behave. Former South African paceman Fanie De Villiers disagrees:
"The umpire hadn't said not out so Pollock had the right to appeal
till the umpire made up his mind."
Denness has curiously ignored every instance of a South African mouthing
off at Indians-both in the Bloemfontein Test match and in Port Elizabeth
where Pollock and Kallis had a go at V.V.S. Laxman in the first innings.
It is "spirit of the game" selectively applied and it is easy
to see where perceptions of racial bias begin and why they will not end.
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COMMENTS
Reputation vs Rules
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NIRANJAN SHAH secretary, BCCI
"The intention of the bowler has to be seen and in this case
there was no intention on the part of Sachin to tamper with the
ball."
AJIT WADEKAR former Indian captain
"Such double standards have always existed. Lifting the seam
itself does not make a real difference to the ball. And look at
Sachin's reputation."
KEPLER WESSELS former SA captain
"There were 19 cameras on the ground at the time. As soon as
I saw that I knew that Sachin Tendulkar was in trouble."
GRAEME POLLOCK former SA captain
"Tendulkar may have been innocently cleaning dirt but he should
have at least told the umpire. He is paying the price for an oversight."
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But could the "Test" at Centurion actually tear cricket down
the middle? Unlikely, even though the British-and the Australians-have
reacted with typical indignation. Echoing a feeling prevalent in their
climes, The Telegraph, London, wrote: "The biggest villain other
than the meddlesome Dalmiya is Ngconde Balfour, the South African sports
minister ... If the ICC are serious about the matter, they will punish
South Africa as strongly as possible... As for Dalmiya: just who does
he think he is?" Should the ICC choose to punish India and South
Africa with bans, it will mean repercussions across the board. The two
nations are going to be involved in high-profile series this winter: India
play England in Mohali within a week, and the impossibly hyped Australia
versus South Africa cricket series takes place at the end of the year.
There is no doubt that any banning of the two countries will be challenged.
There are many who believe that the ICC will either be taken over by new
money or rendered irrelevant should there be a rift in cricket.
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CURRENT
ISSUE DEC 3, 2001
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