Cricket faces uncertain future after South African stand-off

Peter Robinson

November 22, 2001

It is the scenario South Africans thought they'd never see again - the national cricket team playing a side representing another country in an unofficial "Test" match. The question now, though, is not what will happen to the rebel individuals, but what will happen to the international game as it is presently constructed.

South Africa and India have agreed to dispense with the services of Mike Denness as match referee for the third meeting between the two countries at SuperSport Park on the current Indian tour. The International Cricket Council has made it quite clear that without Denness, a properly appointed official agreed to by both countries, the game will not be accorded Test match status. Interestingly, it seems that it will nevertheless be regarded as first-class.

The first principle is immediately obvious. Indian and South Africa have challenged, and rejected, the authority of the ICC. As a result, some sanction must be imposed by the game's governing body. The alternative, it will be argued, is anarchy.

At the same time, the crisis was precipitated by the actions of an ICC official and exacerbated by a deeply flawed disciplinary process. It goes against all the tenets of natural justice not to have some sort of review system. In this instance, this shortcoming has been highlighted by the gap of only two days between the second and third Test matches, but the point remains - anyone found guilty of an offence is surely entitled to appeal against the finding and any sentence?

Of course, this ignores the other central figure in the affair, Sachin Tendulkar. India is in uproar because a national icon with an unblemished record has, in effect, been found guilty of cheating. In one sense, Steve Waugh is perfectly correct - it doesn't matter who is accused, everyone should be treated equally.

The problem here, though, is that despite the video footage, it is still not entirely clear what Tendulkar was up to or if he was up to anything more serious than simply cleaning mud or grass from the seam. Show the footage to 10 different people and you'll get 10 different answers. And if he was simply cleaning the seam, he was guilty of a technical breach of the regulations: he should have done it under the watchful eyes of the umpires.

Despite Denness' reluctance to explain his decisions, it has been established that the umpires did not report any noticeable change in the condition of the ball. This means that Denness made up his mind purely from what he thought he could see from the video footage. And the point is that he might very well have got it wrong, but there are no checks or balances against which his decisions can be reviewed.

The central principle, though, remains. If the ICC has authority, it should impose it. At the same time, the ICC's authority is derived from its member nations and if two of those members challenge that authority, then in effect the ICC is quarrelling with itself.

Probably this is a result of years of ICC dithering. No matter the fine-sounding statements that are issued after every ICC meeting, the body has fumbled its way through so many crises that its credibility has been undermined.

The irony here, of course, is that an ICC match referee has come down hard and the ICC has backed him to the hilt. This, after all, is what everyone has been asking for all along. The question here, now that both India and South Africa have bucked the system, is what will happen next?

Will the ICC suspend one or both countries? Hardly, the game simply could not afford the lost revenue from cancelled tours. Neither can it run the risk of a breakaway. If India and South Africa are suspended, what will happen to their commitments over the next 12 months? Would the England and Australian boards simply stand by and endorse the suspensions, thereby pushing themselves to the brink of bankruptcy? Hardly, again.

The truth is that in the real world compromises have to be made and common sense has to come into play. Which begs the question: if Denness thought things were getting out of hand on then field, why didn't he stroll across to the Indian dressing room, less than half a pitch-length from where he was sitting, close the door and lay down the law? Who knows, had he done that, we might have had an official Test match on Friday.

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