AGB Cricket

THE HISTORY BOYS

Mike Atherton, Ivo Tennant and Simon Barnes in the Times, on the Drawfeit.

Athers: in sparkling form, as usual.

Zimbabwe affair shows ICC has had its day

The ICC no longer has the moral authority to run the game. Given one final opportunity to lift decision-making out of the morass of self-interest, deceit and compromise into which it had fallen, it flunked the test. The outcome on Zimbabwe - self-censorship in return for the loot - was in many ways a triumph for Giles Clarke, the ECB's intelligent and forceful chairman, but it should signal the end for the ICC. Like flared trousers, string vests and the Bay City Rollers, what once seemed a good idea has had its day.

Tennant: elaborates on how the ICC's snivelling decision is even more scandalous than first thought, if that is possible.

MCC to challenge ICC over Pakistan ruling

MCC, which has responsibility for the Laws of Cricket, is to ask the ICC to overturn its decision last week to change the result of the forfeited Test match between England and Pakistan at the Brit Oval in 2006 to a draw. This verdict, Keith Bradshaw, the secretary, will say, contravenes the spirit of the game as well as the Laws. The club’s world committee is also opposed to any alteration to Law 21, which states that the result should not be changed. “Cricket is the worse for this decision and it was opposed unanimously by the ICC’s cricket committee, on which I sit,” he said.

Barnes: his article contains misdirected vitriol, dubious content, is willfully descriptive and the phrase "belabours the point" comes to mind. But apart from that...

Sport the loser after ICC's history revision

It is clear that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has been pondering long and fruitfully on this text from the great book. Certainly, it has decided that history can be undone and put together again in a new form. In a strange, and rather disturbing, precedent, it has said that the match between England and Pakistan at the Brit Oval in 2006 was not, after all, a win for England. It was a draw.

DRAWFEIT

It's easy to take pot-shots at the ICC, so I will.

Once, if you broke the rules, got caught and lost a game, you wore it. You mightn't like it, but you wore it:

Forfeit a Test and you leave with draw

THE International Cricket Council is about to make Test cricket the perfect game - no team should ever lose again.

In a decision which would achieve even greater levels of farce for this hopelessly compromised body, the ICC is set to announce today, at its annual meeting in Dubai, teams can refuse to play and not lose the match.

England's Daily Mail reported from Dubai that: "Cricket's rulers effectively wrote a cheats charter yesterday when they wiped out England's controversial 2006 victory over Pakistan at The Oval and redesignated it as a draw."

Some consider the ICC a spineless pack of snivellers, kowtowing to Pakistan's squealing after the Pakis were caught cheating (the sit-in, not the tampering; although the latter reminds me of Blue Murder when Rogerson tells Neddy that it doesn't matter that he is not guilty, this time, he was guilty plenty of other times). Not me. The ICC is not spineless. The ICC has too much front to be considered spineless. They are, in fact, a rat-cunning, double-dealing, money-grubbing pack of spivs.

Serendipitous indeed that England and Pakistan - suddenly, after two years - have agreed to "declare The Oval Test as a draw to maintain the dignity of Pakistan in world cricket, especially after the ball-tampering charges were dropped" precisely when England needed ICC support to stop Zimbabwe from playing in next year's World Twenty20.

Hey presto:

Zimbabwe pull out of World Twenty20

Zimbabwe have agreed to pull out of next year's Twenty20 World Cup in England, clearing the roadblocks for the competition to be staged there, but will retain their status as Full Member of the ICC and receive funding as usual. They will also receive their full participation fee for the tournament.

The Indian voting block on the ICC can't cut Zimbabwe loose entirely; they need the Zimbo's tainted proxy vote to stump up their twisted aspirations. And the Zims need India:

"We have consulted and exchanged notes with everybody, including our Indian friends, last night," Chingoka said. "We are now looking forward to more tours and international cricket with our Asian friends, especially India."

Cosy.

Thus, the ICC is kept in a dysfunctional state so the richest constituent member can, with the convenient allocation of funds, keep the Zim's vote in their back pocket. 

ICC forced into paying Zimbabwe to stay away

THE International Cricket Council has been forced into such an embarrassing backdown over Zimbabwe that the disgraced cricketing nation will be paid for not attending next year's World Twenty20 championship in England.

Attempts by South Africa and England to have the corrupt Zimbabwe removed as a full member of the ICC at this week's sometimes heated ICC annual meeting in Dubai floundered when India refused to back the move.

Instead India wanted to retain Zimbabwe's vote to continue dominating the ICC with the help of the other Asian countries and the West Indies.

WE LIKE MIKE

Holding quits ICC in protest at disputed Test ruling

ENOUGH is enough, according to West Indies fast bowling legend Michael Holding, who has resigned his position on the International Cricket Council's cricket committee in protest at the decision to change the result of Pakistan's forfeited Test against England at the Oval in 2006 to a draw.

"I have just written my letter of resignation to the ICC Cricket Committee because I cannot agree with what they've done," Holding said during his Sky Sports commentary in England. "That game should never, ever be a draw. When you take certain actions, you must be quite happy to suffer the consequences.

"A lot of things are happening today that I don't want to be involved with, so I've moved on."

REVERSE SUING

Here is what Imran Khan said after last year's for-feet frac-arse:

"Unless Darrell Hair can supply concrete proof of ball-tampering, then I think the Pakistan management should seriously consider suing him. It's a very serious allegation to accure a team of cheating: if I were in their position, I would certainly consider suing Hair."

That's even without the Loin of Lahore's (that's not a tpyo) mini-Hitler remarks.

But what goes around, comes around, as they say. With luscious irony, Hair's suing the ICC AND Pakistan. Brilliant.

Who knows, perhaps Pakistan did indeed threaten to sue Hair, but they probably wouldn't have gone through with it. Any threat merely would have put the frighteners up the ICC, causing those spineless blancmanges to toe the line, so it would have served their purpose well enough.

Whatever their motivations, we know the upshot: Hair had his goats scaped.

An "outraged" PCB Chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf now has his ghasts in a flabber: "Hair was removed from the ICC panel of umpires because of his bad umpiring and poor judgment." Balderdash, of course, that is flatly contradicted by the embarrassed ICC's own rankings which had Hair as the second best umpire after Simon 'Zum' Taufel.

Maybe it's a foolhardy gambit, but as Carrot writes Hair wouldn't be doing this without some pretty robust legal support.

Nor is that business about the 500K relevant. The truth is Hair was in active negotiation about a settlement with people at the ICC but others there white-anted him and then went running to the press with his email. Pigs. It's about the only time in their sad, pathetic history that's they've acted with any alacrity. They only did it to embarrass Hair. And, yes, as it transpired it was an ill-advised course of action from Hair.

Three things are for sure. It took balls to call Murali for chucking; it took balls to forfeit Pakistan for tampering; and it took balls to go the ICC and Pakistan for racial discrimination. Even if that, like Pakistan's earlier thrust and/or parry, is to force the ICC into coughing up a satisfactory resolution.

The ICC have neutered umpires because of vested pressures, so there can only one thing to say - Go you good umpire.