© CricInfo Indian cricket’s strongman is getting stronger, if the decisionstaken at the executive board of the International Cricket Council(ICC) at Cape Town over the weekend are reliable indicators

Partab Ramchand18-Mar-2002
© CricInfoIndian cricket’s strongman is getting stronger, if the decisionstaken at the executive board of the International Cricket Council(ICC) at Cape Town over the weekend are reliable indicators. Hehas again proved that adopting a tough stance can be profitable.It doesn’t always work that way though, and Jagmohan Dalmiyawould do well to remember this even as he savours his latestsuccess in international cricket diplomacy.Whichever way one looks at it, there is little doubt that thepresident of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) hasgained immensely as a result of the deliberations at the CapeTown meeting. And in the process, Indian cricket too hasbenefited. Ever since the Mike Denness controversy surfaced inNovember last year, Dalmiya has managed to drive a hard bargainwith the ICC.Perhaps, only a former ICC president could have pushed the game’sgoverning body on the backfoot so often within the space of a fewmonths. And while this approach has won him few friends in theinternational cricket fraternity, it has made him a hero of sortsat home. But Dalmiya must also know when to stop the hardbargaining and it is hoped that he will be satisfied with theresult of the executive board meeting and now concentrate on thepressing problems confronting Indian cricket.Dalmiya was expected to test his power at the conclave, where themost controversial item on the agenda was the issue of areferees’ commission set up by the ICC to look into the decisionstaken by Denness during India’s tour of South Africa. Since then,the BCCI and the ICC have been at loggerheads over thecontroversy. But instead of buckling down, Dalmiya took the ICChead on.With both parties determined to score a point, at one time asplit seemed on the cards, especially after India receivedbacking on the issue from the Asian Cricket Council last month.When South Africa made it clear that they would back India, theICC, however, had to back down or risk half its members forming abreakaway group.Matters came to a head with Dalmiya rejecting the ICC appointedreferees commission to go into the Denness controversy andsubsequent measures to be taken in this regard. He made it clearthat India would “refrain from participating in the commission inany form or manner”.He objected to the three-member commission comprising Majid Khan(Pakistan) and Andrew Hilditch (Australia) and former judge AlbieSachs of South Africa. He achieved his objective when the ICCscrapped the appointed commission and put in its place a DisputesResolution Committee.The new panel is headed by Michael Beloff, who is to succeed LordHugh Griffiths as chairman of the ICC’s Code of Conductcommission. The other members are the Zimbabwe Cricket Unionchairman Peter Chingoka, the West Indies Cricket Board presidentWesley Hall and their Australian counterpart Bob Merriman. Thescrapping of the old commission and the appointment of a new oneis largely being perceived in cricketing circles as a victory forDalmiya and why not?
© ReutersThe importance of being Jagmohan Dalmiya was also driven home bythe fact that before official business was conducted at CapeTown, ICC president Malcolm Gray met with Dalmiya in a bid tocalm ruffled feathers. The diplomatic process had actuallystarted with the visit of Merriman and Hall to Kolkata recentlywhere they met the BCCI president.The Cape Town meeting also accepted a report prepared by ICCChief Executive Officer Malcolm Speed, to revise the role ofmatch referees. In future, the onus will be on umpires to laydisciplinary charges, which will then be referred to referees tohold a hearing, a point of view Dalmiya will not hold anythingagainst.Also, there will be a right of appeal against referees’ decisionsfor more serious disciplinary offences, again a suggestionDalmiya has advocated. In addition, referees have been given theauthority to explain their decisions to the media, something thatis currently denied to them under existing regulations. This way,at least the kind of farcical press conferences held by Dennessat the height of the controversy will be a thing of the past.The new committee will review the detailed procedures followed byDenness in disciplining the six Indian players. In addition, anew disciplinary code was agreed upon by the Executive Board,with the aim of achieving greater consistency in the applicationof cricket discipline. There will now be four levels of codebreaches, with recommended minimum and maximum penalties.According to Speed, the new disciplinary code would be animportant tool for the recently convened panels of ICC umpiresand referees to work with. While lamenting the decliningstandards of on-field behaviour and admitting that there has beeninconsistency in the way it has been dealt with in the past,Speed was firmly of the view that the new system establishes veryclear penalties for misbehaviour, so there can be nomisinterpretation by either the players or officials concerned.The new disciplinary code is scheduled for introduction from thebeginning of next month.However, there was apparently little Dalmiya could do to reversethe status of the third Test between India and South Africa atCenturion. The ruling to strip the game of its official statuswas upheld unanimously, according to a statement issued after themeeting. Speed’s decision that South Africa won what became atwo-match series by 1-0 was confirmed.Obviously heaving a sigh of relief, Gray said that while thematter had been a major issue for the ICC and its members overthe past five months, “it is a significant achievement that asolution has been reached by all directors that is both businesslike and practical.”One thing is certain. The deliberations at Cape Town succeeded indefusing a potential crisis that at one point looked set to causea split in the game’ governing body. Perhaps one should refrainfrom being over-optimistic but the hope is that the problem hasbeen solved and cricket can move on ahead.Former Pakistan captain and ICC referee Asif Iqbal perhaps summedup the scenario best when he said on the eve of the meeting,”Grayand Speed are capable people and have the best interests of thegame in mind, while Dalmiya will respect the ICC as the parentbody.” The Cape Town conclave achieved a lot towards averting acrisis. It is now time for the concerned parties to bury thehatchet, turn their back on ego clashes and concentrate onimproving the image of the game which has taken a beating oflate.