Four things next week's ICC meeting should look to address

The ICC has finally reacted to the nature of pitches at an institutional level. The journey was quite swift: from Ravi Shastri, then India's director of cricket, gambling on rank turners after South Africa had rattled them in the ODIs in 2015-16; to Bangladesh producing minefield after minefield; to Faf du Plessis openly asking for pitches of a certain kind and admonishing the curators when those were not provided.

The culmination was expected: a dangerous pitch in Johannesburg that nearly resulted in the abandonment of a Test two and a half innings in.

The proposal to do away with the toss and to thereby effectively punish home sides with a Test defeat for unfit pitches is clearly a reaction to this interference in the process of making pitches, and hence has clearly been brought upon themselves by the teams. Here are some of the other issues that need the ICC cricket committee's attention when they meet in Mumbai on May 28 and 29.

Bring swing back
Round white object. Had a habit of misbehaving in the air when hurled properly. Such behaviour last seen in the year 2015 in New Zealand. Anyone finds it, please return to limited-overs cricket.

Remember when the new ball actually swung in ODIs? Way back in the 2015 World Cup, Brendon McCullum would almost bowl Tim Southee and Trent Boult out at the top to make maximum use of that swing. Now we have Bhuvneshwar Kumar resorting to knuckleballs with the new ball. ODI cricket still has Southee, Boult, Bhuvneshwar, Mohammad Amir and Mitchell Starc, bowlers who should have two spoonsful of swing if there is any to be had. Could it be down to the white Kookaburra? After all, every other ball swings, the red SG, the red Duke, the red Kookaburra

It's not as if the ICC is not aware. At least its media wing is. During the Champions Trophy in England last year, its website asked Ian Bishop where the swing had gone. "As far as the wrist position of some of the bowlers we have seen in this tournament, it has been very good," Bishop said. "The seam presentation has been very good. And I've played here long enough to know that even if it is cold or warm or overcast or whatever, at some point you will get the ball to swing. But we haven't seen much of it, so… I don't want to blame the manufacturers of a ball without proof. It is a mystery."

Maybe it is time the cricket committee asked the same question of Kookaburra if it hasn't already.

Harsher penalties for abusive language
  Stop the abuse, this is not war. During the fractious Ravindra Jadeja-James Anderson incident in 2014, investigations revealed that before the abuse came to the alleged pushing, umpire Bruce Oxenford had heard James Anderson call MS Dhoni a "f****** fat c***". Oxenford told the commission he didn't find that serious enough to report to the match referee.

Judicial Commissioner Gordon Lewis AM was moved to observe that "the boundary exchange [which led to Anderson allegedly pushing Jadeja] does not warrant disciplinary action if the earlier insult directed to Dhoni did not".

When it is clear to all that cricket allows vile behaviour on the field in the name of passion and competitiveness, it can only lead to what happened in South Africa earlier this year.

Cricketers are great athletes but they are also selfish competitors. They will try to do anything they believe gives them an advantage as long as they are not caught. So ignore their yearning for the good old days of a macho sport - a euphemism for saying any abuse goes - and their whataboutery concerning it, and stop the abuse with in-game penalties that cannot be challenged in a court of law, before it turns into fisticuffs in stairwells where the CCTV cameras either work or don't, depending on which team is likely to come out looking worse.

Clear the air around ball-tampering
A lesson from the scandal in South Africa: like with smoke and fire, there probably is no reverse without some naughtiness. Bowlers adapt. They find ways to reverse the ball. A blind eye is turned to some of these, and some acts are caught.

The massive reaction to the blatant attempt in South Africa - some of it was the schadenfreude of driving it into the "big bad Aussies", but some of it was genuine shock - took even the ICC by surprise. One of the reasons a blind eye was turned to it was to give the bowlers something.

There is an urgent need to now possibly de-demonise it, and define clearly what exactly a team can do to the ball legally. The ICC has always steered clear of legalising tampering for the fear of opening a can of worms, but here now is the opportunity, the required context, to actually legally give the bowlers that "something". Thrash out the details: what is a foreign object, is a long fingernail allowed, is sweetened saliva okay, should throws on the bounce at least be permitted?

Do something about the reliance on broadcasters
Since the forfeited Test at The Oval in 2006, all official ball-tampering charges have relied on footage provided by broadcasters. Only visiting players have ever been charged. No neutral broadcaster has ever aired any such footage.

This influence doesn't limit itself to ball-tampering. Umpires rely more and more on broadcasters for their decision-making. This might be a little beyond the cricket committee's remit because it involves finances, but the uncomfortable reliance on host broadcasters for the purpose of making umpiring decisions and bringing to light code-of-conduct offences has to be addressed somehow.