African Safari: The tour diary

Stirring up St. George's Park

Those who believe that cricket reporting is only about sitting in a press box, sipping champagne, and looking through binoculars at how a batsman leans into a cover drive should have been at St. George's Park on Tuesday. The ground was buzzing with scribes turning up at the venue as much as three hours before the start of the final day's play of the second Test. The best positions in the conference room were being sought, and television crews jostled with each other to ensure that nothing came in between their cameras and the podium. Even in the land that witnessed Hansie Cronje's sensational fall not too long ago, the incident warranted a national audience.

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Elsewhere, in the commentators' cabin, Sunil Gavaskar was getting slightly agitated with the producers of the television channel for wanting to follow the regular practice of having a pitch report. "This is not a moment when you should worry about the nicety of a pitch report. There is a far more pressing issue, and people are more keen to know about the decision on the players than to listen to the pitch report."

In the conference room, match referee Mike Denness finally arrived and suitably asked the chief executive of the Eastern Province, Gerald Majola, to speak on his behalf. What happened in the press conference thereafter has been well recorded by now and does not bear repetition. Enlightened point of views throughout the day only served to expose Denness' disasters.

There remained some confusion as to whether it was indeed the producers of the local television networks who brought the much-talked-about footage Denness' attention, or whether it was the match referee himself who sought the video. Local television producers were keen to slip out of the spotlight and insisted that it was Denness who asked for the television footage. Again, Gavaskar was reluctant to admit the argument. "It is difficult for the television crew to say they were not highlighting the issue. They kept focussing on one man and his fingers from the entire field. Television can't claim in this instance that they were being neutral."

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Sir Geoffrey Boycott was his inimitable self. "Mike (Denness) sat in the press conference looking like a wax statue from the Madame Tussaud's." Cricket commentator Alan Wilkins had even received an email in which Indian tennis great Vijay Amritraj wanted to know what was happening.

All this to-do was largely because the issue involved Sachin Tendulkar, the Kohinoor of Indian, and international, cricket, a man who has never been accused of even a hint of mischief. Never a dissent, an argument, or a raised voice; a man who should be applauded as a role model by the establishment and used as an example for others to emulate has been slandered by the insensitivity of an uncaring, if not blatantly biased, match referee.

Now the attention has shifted to India, particularly in view of what Jagmohan Dalmiya, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), said on television. The immediate goal for the Indian side must be to have Virender Sehwag reinstated in the final Test starting at Centurion Park on November 23. The general consensus was that the ICC should constitute a panel to review the judgements of Denness and so, till it arrived at a decision, all rulings must be kept in abeyance. If such a situation develops, the committee will take at least a week; Sehwag would then be easily available for the Centurion Test.

Former South African paceman Brett Schultz said that the least the match referee could have done was to speak to the umpires on his walkie-talkie and then tell the players to get on with the game without excessive appealing. "Especially when it involved so many youngsters who are just breaking out in the international arena," said Schultz. A view no doubt echoed by many throughout the cricket-following world.