The Hindu : Sport : ICC needs to get its priorities right

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ICC needs to get its priorities right

Leaving aside differences, the ICC has to address issues in its domain, writes Makarand Waingankar

The International Cricket Council is divided, with the Asian block ensuring Zimbabwe’s status in the ICC and the opposition forgetting its role during the apartheid era and demanding the ouster of Zimbabwe. This will have its effect on the ensuing series and tournaments but the non-Asian block’s stance is not convincing.

The BCCI’s obsession in suppressing the ICL and not objecting to the manipulative financial methods of the President of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union is something England is not able to digest. In the case of ICL, England’s county players are legally and ethically on a sound footing.

But the England Cricket Board (ECB) insisting on the ouster of Zimbabwe from the ICC is not acceptable to the Asian block.

The ECB may be governed by the foreign policy of UK in not allowing the Zimbabwe team to enter the country but that certainly should not be a factor for the ICC to throw Zimbabwe out.

Political shunning

UK’s political shunning of Zimbabwe is morally well founded, but not so great that they would be willing to forgo the Beijing Olympics and the FIFA World Cup in 2010 rather than compete with Zimbabwe. So why the desperation to throw Zimbabwe out of the ICC? The urgent reason is that Zimbabwe’s one vote keeps the ICC power out of the hands of the non-Asian block.

The atrocities of Robert Mugabe’s regime are indisputable. But England, Australia and New Zealand had continued to support South Africa for decades, though South Africa was banned much before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and was boycotted by a majority of the countries in sports and other businesses.

The Indian government and the BCCI were magnanimous in letting Farokh Engineer, Sunil Gavaskar and Bishen Singh Bedi play alongside South Africans, Graeme Pollock and Hilton Ackerman for the World XI against Australia in 1972. This fact the present bosses of the BCCI (who didn’t allow V.V.S. Laxman and Piyush Chawla to play county cricket) should bear in mind, though surprisingly Sachin Tendulkar (unlike Pakistan’s Faisal Iqbal) is spared despite playing with the ICL rebels.

Sidetracking the issue

The decision making of the full members of the ICC is not based on any issues. It has more to do with the politics that sidetracks the main issue.

That for decades England and Australia used the veto power in the ICC to push their agenda is conveniently forgotten.

The ECB has said it will accept its best players abstaining from the sub-continent tours on security concerns. Does that mean the safety of the second-string players is not as important? And if security of players is a matter of concern, playing in England after the bomb blasts there is also not safe.

The next two months will be crucial for the survival of the game. The ICL issue, Stanford’s involvement in T20, Champions Trophy, Tests at Bangalore and Ahmedabad after the bomb blasts, will require sensible heads coming together to make the game more popular. At a time when the issues are piling up, the ICC Chief and his colleagues in the committee, leaving aside the differences that are more political than cricketing, should address the issues which are in the ICC’s domain. Ignoring those problems will do nothing but invite disaster.

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