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.
I thought history was supposed to be written by the winners?
Posted by: nick | Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 11:28 PM
nick: India are making the money, so they are the winners...
Posted by: Chade | Monday, July 14, 2008 at 09:30 PM
Would they have changed the result if it was going to have a bearing on the final result of the series?
The precedent this sets is scary when you think about it.
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 07:09 AM
I note that in Athers's column he rightly calls Michael Holding "one of the good men of the game". I take some quiet satisfaction in the thought that only in this game I love, could someone with the nickname "Whispering Death" be viewed as a moral paragon. Cricket is wonderful.
(Despite the explosion of greed that is just now warping it out of recognition).
Posted by: Tybalt | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 01:19 PM
You know who likes history...
Do you like to fight injustice?
Yes, that is truly an exceptional quality you have.
Please sign the Save our Bill Lawry petition to keep the Corporate vultures from ending the career of our favourite excitable one.
Think of the children.
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Posted by: Cricket News | Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 07:10 PM