ICC Attempting To Establish Improved View From Summit (3 Jul 1996)

3 Jul 1996

ICC attempting to establish improved view from summit

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

A SUMMIT conference is being planned by the International Cricket Council next May. When delegates meet at Lord`s next week the chief executive, David Richards, hopes there will be an agreement to hold separate meetings in England of Test captains, Test umpires and the panel of international referees. The groups will then get together to discuss topical matters and long-term plans.

The pace of international cricket always gets hotter at this time of year, when the administrators of world cricket unite, or occasionally disunite. The ICC`s full annual meeting does not begin at Lord`s until a week today but the principal players are already in town and power-games have started.

One pressing concern is who should succeed the West Indian, Sir Clyde Walcott, as chairman of the ICC from July 1997. It will be part of a long-term debate about whether spreading the game to new parts of the world will be an exercise in expanding the enjoyment of the masses or filling the pockets of the few. There are some dangerous fallacies abroad just now, peddled by some who would rewrite history and others who would treat cricket as the plaything of television moguls.

It would be wrong to imagine that the ICC have suddenly become a political forum. The late Abdul Hafeez Kardar was suggesting as long ago as the 1960s that Lord`s should no longer be the centre of the cricketing world and it was primarily the wrangle over cricketing relations with South Africa which transformed the organisation from a comfortable confederation of Testplaying countries into a more commercial, pro-active body.

MCC`s influence has virtually disappeared, although Richards, the administrator of the still small organisation who theoretically `run` world cricket, has his office where the MCC clerk of the works once presided over the fabric of the most famous ground. It is to some extent a coincidence that Richards should be both an Australian and the former chief executive of the Australian Board but in effect it has been Australia which has set the pace of world cricket since the late 1970s.

Richards hopes the meeting will agree to a full-members executive committee to give the ICC more authority to intervene in matters like bribery and ball-tampering allegations

The catalyst was Kerry Packer, whose purchase of most of the best players in the world as hostages in his campaign to win Australian television rights changed the direction of world cricket to the point where the purpose of international matches was to make money.

Now it is the Indians, and in particular their sharply commercial Cricket Board secretary, Jagothan Dalmiya, who would increase the tempo still further. Among his ideas, apparently, is the elimination of the draw in Test cricket by limiting overs. Thereby he would cheapen the game`s quality and its capacity for infinite variation in a misguided attempt to make it more accessible to the so far unconverted multitudes - in China, or America for example.

I trust Dalmiya will be reminded that some draws are dull, some thrilling; that some limited-overs matches are exciting, some utterly predictable and shoddy; and that an entire generation was hooked by Test cricket on television before anyone thought of playing one-day internationals.

Dalmiya, however, is an astute businessman and politician, as he showed when buying the votes of the associate-member countries in order to stage the last World Cup on the subcontinent simply by offering them more of the proceeds. Now he has more than a chance of succeeding Walcott next year, perhaps capitalising on a split vote between his rivals, Krish Mackerdhuj of South Africa and Malcolm Gray of Australia, and depending, possibly, on those same associate members, who now number 22. (Nepal and France will attempt next week to become the 23rd and 24th members with the former, at least, likely to succeed).

The associates outnumber the nine Test-playing countries, who have double votes, by four but the election of the chairman, a `binding decision` issue in ICC jargon, requires either the agreement of all nine Test countries, or a two-thirds majority among the nine and 21 votes overall.

Richards, who has two more years of his own contract to run, says: "I`d be surprised if we don`t agree on someone by next Thursday. I`ll back whoever is voted in as long as his interest is worldwide and for the good of cricket as a whole."

Richards hopes the meeting will agree to a full-members executive committee to give the ICC more authority to intervene in matters like bribery and ball-tampering allegations, especially when they are not covered by the code of conduct and the jurisdiction of the ICC referees.

He has also recommended a four-yearly Youth World Cup; that Ali Bacher should chair a development committee to spark further expansion; and that an experienced advisory panel should be set up to adjudicate on bowlers with suspect action.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)