Sledging should be handled by cricket boards

Every society is meant to be regulated by some code of conduct and various punishments are prescribed for violating the code of conduct. If the code of conduct was observed every society would be an ideal one. But we know that this is not the case. Why then do cricket administrators persist in coming up with so much twaddle which they know full well they will not be able to enforce?

Just getting pledges from players that they will not get involved in match-fixing will not end the menace of match-fixing. A criminal does not expect to get caught and will happily put his signature on any document that commits him to honest conduct. Even the threat of capital punishment has not reduced the murder rate.

There appears to be little doubt that bookies have turned their attention to cricket and we have the examples of Hansie Cronje, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh who have admitted to having dealings of some sort with the bookies. I don't think we can abolish human nature and greed is an aspect of human nature.

Banning the use of mobile phones from dressing-rooms, screening visitors that call on players in their hotels seems to me to be patently absurd. If a bookie wants to make contact with a player, he will do so.

I have always maintained that match-fixing should be left to the police and it is for the police to mount its own vigilance. After all, it was the Delhi police that nabbed Hansie Cronje. The ICC and the various cricket boards have no role to play. As detectives, they are really Inspector Clousseau bungling their way through.

Where the ICC can be effective is to clean up the game and an excellent start has been made in trying to get rid of sledging or verbal abuse. The umpires are to be given powers to dock five runs for sledging or distracting opponents.

It is interesting that only the Australians have opposed this and Steve Waugh has been most articulate. He has come out with an astonishing statement. He says his Australian cricket team does not sledge opponents, instead they play a game of "mental disintegration." I must confess that I don't have the foggiest idea what "mental disintegration" means. As a first reaction, it conjures up an image of someone losing his mind and on the physical side of someone's brains dissolving. Nothing has a greater hold on the human mind than nonsense fortified with technicalities.

One does not have to be a lip-reader to work out what an Australian fast bowler is telling a batsman. Steve Waugh may call it "mental disintegration" but used by a child, a mother would want to clean the child's mouth with soap and water. I don't want to be culturally disrespectful but most of us would consider that kind of language to be good, old-fashioned swearing, what in the famous Nixon tapes were "expletive deleted."

The Pakistan Cricket Board had set up a two-men inquiry committee to find out what really happened during the notorious Mike Gatting- Shakoor Rana slanging match. I was one of the members and Yawar Saeed the other. We conducted interviews including one with Mike Gatting.

Mike Gatting said that he would want to go back to the 1987 World Cup match at Rawalpindi between England and Pakistan. In that match some hot words were exchanged between him and Javed Miandad. I told Gatting that according to Javed Miandad, he, Gatting had abused him. Gatting denied abusing him.

"What did you tell him?" I asked. He told us that all he said was blank, blank (obviously I cannot repeat the words).

"You don't consider that to be abusive language?" We asked him in astonishment. Clearly he didn't. I myself, sometimes, use strong language but I don't fool myself into believing that that kind of language is acceptable in polite company.

Once again, the ICC means well but has come out with a proposal that hasn't been thought out. There is the language barrier. Pakistani players will sledge in Urdu and Punjabi, the South Africans in African, the Sri Lankans in their own mother tongue. How is the umpire to know what is being said? He will have to observe body-language.

Sledging is something that should be handled by individual cricket boards. It is for them to impress on the players that they bring no credit to their country by behaviour that one associates with street urchins and gutter-snipes.

The gestures we see on television are positively vulgar and I have often wondered about the family upbringing of these cricketers. Do they make such gestures at home, before their parents? Yet millions see them on television. It seems to be a recent trend. I do not recall the former greats behaving like louts.

Finally, there was the tournament in Singapore which South Africa won in style. The final was rain-affected and was reduced to 35 overs per innings. Pakistan's first match against New Zealand was a 25-over affair. I would have thought if international tournaments have to be held, some thought should be given to the weather.

At that, we should consider ourselves lucky that there was some cricket. The final could have been washed out. Pakistan and South Africa were both under-strength but Pakistan more so.

But I was glad to see Ijaz Ahmed back in the team. He is an old campaigner but for some strange reason is always on trial. It goes to his credit that he hasn't lost heart. He was Pakistan's most consistent batsman in the Singapore tournament and one hopes, as much for Ijaz's sake as for Pakistan's that we will accept that he remains one of the best batsmen in the team. He should be an automatic selection much in the way that Inzamam-ul-Haq and Saeed Anwar are.

It is also noteworthy that he is one of the senior players who has kept himself fit. Pakistan must start thinking about England's visit and the selectors should be inking in the names of those who will be certainties and taking a hard look at those who are strong candidates.