Over the last week or so this blog deliberately stopped blogging regarding the ball tampering and disrepute charges against Inzie as it was felt that by providing more ammunition to the gutter press sports correspondents would do nothing for the good and future of the game. Yesterday the ICC determined that the charge of ball tampering be quashed whilst the disrepute charge, Inzie was held accountable and banned from four 1-day matches. Well as was predicted by this blog the whole saga has been dealt with neatly and efficiently by ICC but in truth there are many unanswered questions. This blog takes the view that Inzie was indeed innocent of the tampering charge BUT...and this is the big BUT....someone(s) in the Pakistan team must have been accountable for the change of the ball somewhere between 50th and 56th overs. Quite rightly the charge of bringing the game into disrepute was proved but instead of a 5 TEST MATCH ban (i.e one av. series) Inzie received a lesser penalty of wait for it, a ban for 1-day matches. Quite why Madugalle thought that this was a punishment for a TEST MATCH is beyond reason. It's rather like penalising a Formula 1 racing driver for speeding on a public road by banning him from a Grand Prix at the end of the season after the outcome of the championship had been decided. Anyway Inzie is regarded as a Test player rather than a 1-day specialist so the result can only be described as a WHITEWASH. Perhaps WHITES-WASH would be a better term for a cricketing whitewash.
What has become of the noble game? Well, I can only compare what is happening in cricket to what has happened in society generally and in particular the similarities between the administration of cricket is similar to what has happened to the London Stock Exchange. When I joined the LSE in 1979 we had an exchange controlled and managed by experienced brokers understanding of the complexities and workings of the exchange. Any misdeamenours were dealt with by a council made up of practioners and a visit to the committee was considered tantamount to one's job, career and life being on the line. The phrase "23rd floor" was frowned upon and no-one wanted to visit there although I know plenty of old brokers who survived. After Big Bang in 1987 the government forced on the exchange a regulatory system consisting of lawyers, administrators and many non-practioners. The whole idea was that by having these monkeys telling us how to behave and regulating us then the rules of the exchange would be upheld, insiders would get prosecuted, well you get the drift. The result has been a disaster but like all the biggest and best disasters very few realise that they're actually part of it. The boffins at the EEC feel and act likewise no doubt. Meanwhile cricket has been going down the same road. Let me explain!
For years, indeed generations, cricket was run and managed by cricketers past and practising. Just like the old London Stock Exchange then. Something happened mid-term during Thatcher's tenure. Cecil Parkinson was directed to examine whether the exchange was a closed shop. The conservatives determined it was and self-regulation should be replaced by external regulation. The same thing has happened in cricket. Old cricket afficionados like Lord Cowdrey have been replaced by non-cricketers. Retired cricketers no longer get into cricket administration but join the press corps. It's a generalisation I know but just look at the ICC. It's has been hijacked by lawyers and regulator types. When Lord MacLaurin (Tesco's) entered the etchelins of the cricket establishment something happened for the worse. It wasn't deliberate you understand. The ethos of the game changed and big business arrived. Sponsorship improved, boxes and corporate entertainment thrived which is all quite satisfying but the structure of the game changed for the worse.
Every schoolboy knows two things about cricket when excitedly he starts his first day at his school or club and is put into practice nets with more experiened players. The first thing is that he thinks he knows how to hold his treasured bat but his grip is wrong. The other is that no matter what the umpires word is law...always law. If the umpire says the ball is BLACK it is black. It might be actually red, pink, white, green but if the umpire says it's black then it is BLACK. If a bowler hits a batsman plumb in front of the stumps and appeals thinking the batsman is out nothing happens without the decision of the umpire. I lost count of the times when I thought I was out LBW but given not out by the umpire. We all remember those occasions when we were given out unfairly but think of the run outs and LBW's we all got away with. This is what makes cricket a great game. The imperfections of the rules and the daft decisions of umpires. So why is it that administrators are ruining this game from Dubai?
The blog was set up to defend Darrell Hair but more importantly to defend the basic ethos of the game and all the millions of umpiring decisions that get made regularly all around the world. This is a world game. It always has been. How long will it be before absurd suggestions come from the ICC that they wish to make it a global game? Like the London Stock Exchange it always has been global. We (lovers of the game) don't need to be told it is global just like we don't need to be told that something murky is happening to our game. Bob Woolmer & PCB want the rules of ball tampering to be relaxed. Why? That is the question. The reason is obvious.
I notice that Boycott, Simon Hughes and John Hampshire were witnesses for Inzie during the hearing. Fantastic! All three are extremely knowledgeable and would have given very good accounts of why they thought Inzie was innocent. And he was! But one thing has puzzled me about this whole affair. This is it.....If 2 umpires felt it necessary to change the ball because they thought it had been tampered with and now they have made public that they didn't actually see someone tamper with it then surely logic dictates that someone on the field of play saw another player tamper with the ball. But none of the other 21 players active in the game appear to have made any statements.
Yesterday, shortly before the outcome of the hearing I had a telephone call from a friend. This friend (and I need to be very careful here) rang me for a general chat and I asked him if he has taken any interest in Inziegate or had any thoughts prior to the ICC hearing outcome. He told me had been too busy. You see he works in the world of cricket. It's a very small world so this is all I will say. I asked him whether he had thought any members of the Pakistan team had cheated by tampering with the ball in the Oval test. His response was surprising. Very surprising indeed! He said that he knew of young cricketers who had been shown in the last week or so how to change the ball without anyone seeing what was going on. I know it's a bit wishywashy but the source is very reliable and apparently an English cricketer (one of the 11 in the Oval match) had shown them how the Pakistan bowlers were changing the dynamics of the ball. The chiselled shape of the thumb in conjunction with a very hard nail is the key. Now I was told about this also around 1 month ago by my friend, the ex-Kent colt so it's no longer fantasy then.
Darrell Hair will no doubt be put out to grass not because he was wrong or a bad umpire but because he enforced the laws of the game fairly. Pakistan, on the other hand, are being appeased by pushing the boundaries to these laws to th extreme.
THE GAME IS NOW RUN BY LAWYERS...SAVE THE GAME BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE.
In 7 days time this blog will change it's name to INZIEGATE, not because I believe that Inzie has done anything wrong but because he represents a country that is pushing the game into a corner. Ball tampering has always been around and like insider dealing it will always occur. But the lesson is that despite the thousdands of regulators working down at Canary Wharf very few accounts of insider dealing have been prosecuted. That's what happens when lawyers arrive. Things get murky and nothing get's done. Cricket is a game. Let's keep it as a game and let it be run by retired cricketers from London, Melbourne, Jo'burg, Kingston, Delhi NOT Dubai please.
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