The Spirit of Cricket 2008

	Texas billionaire Allen Stanford is ready to bankroll an ECB Twenty20 tournament © Cricinfo Ltd

Dubai, June 29, 2008. Clad in matching blazers, shorts, long socks and “ICC Rool OK” caps, delegates convene for the ICC “annual conference week”.

A Welshman is due to take over as president and a black South African as CEO. Meetings of the ICC Chief Executives' Committee and the ICC Board are scheduled to run until July 4. With proceedings about to begin, the gathering remains a man short. Butter-mountain-sized mounds of Kentish pasties, ostrich pies, wombat burgers, rhubarb-flavour rotis and cherry-topped chapatis are being consumed with much relish and chutney, and no patriotism or partiality whatsoever. But patience is wearing thinner than Harbhajan Singh’s list of alibis for what the more patriotic and/or diplomatic call “inappropriate behaviour”. Just inside the door, unnoticed by most and ignored by the rest, lurks a lone protestor in a cable-knit V-neck sweater, holding a placard that reads “ICC – Idiotic, Corrupt, Crap”.

Then, as watches are consulted, heads are shaken, tuts are exchanged and formal introductions are about to be made, the missing delegate is shepherded into the room under blanket and armed guard.

(For legal reasons, any vague, distant or mildly plausible relationship between persons alive, dead or in purgatory quoted in the following unedited transcript is strictly coincidental.)

England and Wales Delegate (sneering and swigging a magnum of Majestic Wine’s finest and cheapest Chilean): The Honourable Member for Zimbabwe, I presume. These Arabs will do anything to get a Twenty20 international staged here.

Australia Delegate (chucking a tin of XXXX at the England and Wales Delegate and hitting the coffee machine): Don’t be so sure, you posh public schoolie pie-chucking Pommy bustard. Could be the former CEO. Go Malcy baby! Teach those curry-eaters a thing or two about political principles.

India Delegate (throwing a paper planer with an extremely sharp nose towards his Australian counterpart, who fails to get out of the way in time): You mean, like being kind to your local aborigine? That Aussie sneak. Good bloody riddance. Typical old world. They ran the game - the game we invented please note - for 200-odd years but that wasn’t enough, was it? They still can’t accept it’s our turn to call the shots and make all the dosh.

Pakistan Delegate (wearing “I Love Sachin” t-shirt and crossing fingers behind his back): Hear bloody hear!

Sri Lanka Delegate (wearing “I Love Darrell” t-shirt): Ditto to the power of n. To infinity and beyond.

Bangladesh Delegate (wearing a “Greed Is Not Good” t-shirt): I strongly suspect, unless I’m very much mistaken, that I concur with the Honourable Members for India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Pakistan Delegate (whispering a shade too audibly to Sri Lanka Delegate): Shut up, you fool. You wanna make them think we’re all Buzz Lightyears and Woody the Cowboys? If you’re going to get all clever and Pixar, think Ratatouille and embrace rat-like cunning, for gawd’s sake. (Turning to the Bangladesh Delegate) As for you Bangas, keep it short, eh? Children should be seen and not heard.

South Africa Delegate (wearing “I Love Warney” t-shirt, overhearing): Come on, lads. Get it together. We ex-colonials really must stick together. England is the enemy, remember!

India Delegate (pulling on a late-arriving “I Love Symmo” t-shirt): No, leave them be. Who needs ’em?

Australia Delegate (pulling on late-arriving “I Love Harby” t-shirt and nursing pranged nose): You wait till I tell Kylie about this. I promise you, mate: she’ll never do that IPL cheerleading gig next year.

West Indies Delegate (wearing “Frere Jacques – Kiss Kallis” t-shirt): Gentlemen - and others. I think you’ll agree that the public appear to have lost some faith in our ability to govern. So, before we start on official business, on behalf of the esteemed Mr Allen Stanford - who, contrary to vicious rumour, is not paying for my five-star hotel, my Avis voucher and those promised [makes quotation sign with fingers] escorts - I would like to propose him as the head of a new, independent body overseeing world cricket, which I’m sure you’ll all agree can only be for the best.

Australia Delegate: Bollocks.

England and Wales Delegate: Believe it or not, and I think this may be a record, but I completely agree with you. We may have signed a deal with Stanford, but that was only a ruse to scupper the IPL and outflank the BCCI. We don’t actually want that squillionaire yokel having a say in the game’s development. He made his money in America, for Gubby’s sake.

India Delegate: And I agree wholeheartedly with my Australian (makes quotes sign) friend. The Caribbean’s a dead loss, anyway. All the dollars on earth aren’t going to stop cricket’s extinction there. That’ll repay them for Jamaica ’76.

New Zealand Delegate (wearing a “I Love Chappells” t-shirt and a “Stuff Peace – Worship Waughs” headband): Aren’t we straying from the point?

Sri Lanka Delegate: Quite. What are we going to do? Trust the same old recipe and the usual ingredients or go for a brand new dish with a revolutionary new sauce?

Pakistan Delegate (to Sri Lanka Delegate, scoffing): OK, OK. I know I said to think Ratatouille, but enough of the food metaphors already.

Bangladesh Delegate (barely audible, choosing words with the utmost deliberation): Please, gentlemen, and ladies, I implore you. Remember that united front.

Australia Delegate (lobbing a sopping ink pellet at the Pakistan Delegate but hitting the South Africa Delegate): I heard that. I always suspected you lot were in cahoots. No wonder Pakistan didn’t want us over in April. I’ve got a good mind to get my mate Darrell No-Hair in here to sort you out.

South Africa Delegate (to Australia Delegate): You platypus afterbirth! Wait til Nelson hears about this. You do know there’s an ANC plot to kidnap Warney and black, er, whitemail his mobile phone company.

Pakistan Delegate (poking his tongue at the Australia Delegate): You’d better watch it, mate. I’ll invoke the Spirit of Cricket if you say anything like that again. I may even report you to Lord’s for rumour-tampering.

India Delegate (to Pakistan Delegate, laughing): Hah! Shows you what that lot knows. Lord’s hasn’t been calling the shots for quite some time, me old china. In case you hadn’t noticed, we run the ship now. Or were you wasting too much time waiting for Shoaib Akhtar to grow up to notice?

England and Wales Delegate (whispering to Disguised Delegate): Sorry, can’t quite recall your name, old boy, but these colonials do have rather a habit of shooting themselves in the foot, don’t they? Mark my words: Lord’s will be in its rightful place, back at the top, within a decade. Watch how I keep my comments short and heroically sour. Divide and rule, divide and rule – it never fails. We’re still the only sane voice. We’re certainly the only place on the circuit where you can get a decent cup of tea – that must count for something.

New Zealand Delegate (yelling to make himself heard above the din): Enough. Enough. It’s like a playground in here. I warn you. If you lot don’t stop I’ll do a haka and really give you something to complain about. We’ve got five days of this but the way we’re going we won’t get past lunch.

ECB Delegate (whispering to the Disguised Delegate): Do shut up, old man, there’s a dear. Best keep a low profile. We can’t have politics mixing with sport, now can we?

New Zealand Delegate: Look, everything we’ve heard this morning underlines what the press, the players and the public have been saying about us for the past few years, and never more so than right now, what with all the business about Zimbabwe’s accounts, the IPL and the ICL, Darrell Hair, that regrettable and possibly foolish nastiness over the CEO and, worst of all, Jacques Kallis’s missing personality. The way they see it, we’re driven by self-interest, national pride, racial paranoia and cliques. And that’s the ones who can see a point in our existence. How about we wrongfoot them all?

New Zealand Delegate: Well, seeing our final scheduled day is July 4, why don’t we get the Yanks involved? I hear Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, may be looking for a new job after all those nasty revelations about human growth hormone consumption on his watch. The thing is, attendances and income have soared as never before under his watch too. We need his nous and his impartiality.

England and Wales Delegate: You know something – I don’t think you are horribly wrong. The less they know, the better for our chance of retaining control, as I’m confident my honourable friend from the Caribbean will agree. We need Mr Selig’s ignorance.

India Delegate: Hear bloody hear! And that goes for all of us in the Asian bloc, right lads?

Australia Delegate: I reckon you can count on the Antipodean vote too. Those peacenik Kiwis have finally got their beaks out of the sand.

South Africa Delegate: Same for us Africans, given that my supposed fellow African appears to have lost his voice.

Mugabe: Nice work, lads. Who knew my masterplan would work so smoothly? When I said cricket civilises people all those years ago, I was hoping I could do something to wipe the smile off all those imperial faces running it. Who knew history would commemorate me as the man who cleaned the bloody game up? My work is finally done. Wonder if they’ve got any vacancies at the Home for Retired Megalomaniacs.