Malcolm in the middle

The internecine feud is over, and after a week of self-mutilation, cricket triumphed over its own divisions last weekend. Narrowly. We might never know how close the ICC came to pushing Jagmohan Dalmiya and thus India to the brink, but after a dangerously slow awakening to the implications of a bloody-minded reaction to India’s refusal to play under match referee Mike Denness, the ICC and Dalmiya negotiated the game back from the precipice. Considering the speculation about divisions and bans, it could have been much, much worse.

The ICC, rightly scorned for the cavalier way it initially approached India's concerns over the Denness fiasco, eventually emerged with a better image than when it started. In time, what is likely to be remembered is that concessions were made and the game continued, not the needless delays and anguish caused by the length of time it took to happen.

The perception is that the ICC talked a recalcitrant and latently powerful nation into commonsense for the betterment of game overall, and even though that may not be accurate, it still serves its purpose. India, too, eventually got its wish, in that its protests over Denness's verdicts finally received official acknowledgement in the form of a commission to review whether correct procedures were adhered to and that natural justice was applied. Crucially, that is distinct from a review panel to either endorse or overturn Denness's actual decisions, which for now remain the prerogative of the match referee.

So was it all just a bad dream? Not quite. Sehwag still misses a Test, and there was an orphan fixture between South Africa and India to conclude a miserable and, one suspects fortunately for a few of India's players (or not so fortunately for Agarkar, Khan, Nehra and Prasad), hastily overlooked tour. That series officially stands at 1-0 to South Africa, and ironically India would seem to have no further motivation to campaign for it to be 2-0.

If a resolution had been left to apparent rivals Malcolm Gray and Jagmohan Dalmiya, the India-England series might still have been cancelled. There is no evidence to support it, but it would not be at all surprising to learn that Malcolm Speed played the key mediator in the destabilising clash of wills between Gray and Dalmiya.

All the ignorant and hardline statements by the ICC in the immediate aftermath seemed to come from Gray. When speaking publicly, Gray continually conveyed the impression the ICC did not understand the basis of India's protest and that the ICC's stance on the issue was unyielding. According to him, there was nothing for the ICC to resolve and there could be no review of Denness's performance.

With Dalmiya only making statements to the media, Gray remarkably saw no need to communicate with him. If that had continued, it could have been ugly. One fancies that the rather more dispassionate CEO Speed was the one who initiated the dialogue.

Against Speed is that he did put his name to a deadline in an open letter to Dalmiya. At the time it seemed an ill-advised and dangerously stubborn ultimatum, but in outlining what the ICC would not accept, in hindsight it could be seen to be a way to get to the negotiating table sooner. In going direct to Dalmiya, Speed took a step forward, as opposed to the statements and counter-statements that were leading nowhere.

Crisis is nothing new to Speed as a cricket administrator. In his first year as CEO of the Australian Cricket Board in 1997/’98, Speed had to contend with the very real possibility of a player strike, which would have been disastrous for the game in Australia. He passed that test successfully and faced with another potentially disastrous issue as head of the ICC, has done so again. That both sides are apparently hailing it as a victory must be privately pleasing for him.

Despite the peace deal, the issues that sparked the conflagration remain. What happens at the next ICC meeting is anybody's guess, but the fact that talk of a split rose to the surface so quickly should serve as a warning to all the game's administrators to be aware of the sentiments of a cricketing power like India, even if they are not voiced officially. If injustice at the hands of officials had not already been a sore point, there is no way Denness's rulings, unfair as they were, would have sparked the reaction they did, which the ICC surely realises now.

It seems certain the elite panel of five referees to be selected by Ranjan Madugalle next year will be former cricketers of high repute, but that is not necessarily the right direction to take. Former cricketers acting as match referees, who surely cannot help but carry over some of their rivalries, prejudices and preferences from their playing days, have already proven flawed in administering justice and upholding the code of conduct. There is no reason to believe that their playing achievements make them any better qualified to enforce the rules fairly.

A consistent and more impartial system might be appointing a professional panel with no significant playing history, but who perhaps have a legal background or something similar to make them better qualified to simply observe the conduct of players and uphold the rules uniformly. With less emotional involvement with the personalities of the game and more tribunal expertise, there would be a better a chance of a panel like that performing the jobs current match referees are generally failing to do.

More Columns

Mail Daniel Laidlaw