The ICC is incapable of getting national teams to adhere to its rules. The damage to the ICC from this problem may be minimal now, but will compound later, as it already has done.
To date, a bowler with a suspect action is continuing to play the international sport.
A team (Pakistan vs England) has walked away from a test match.
An umpire (Hair) has been suspended from matches for following the rules.
Another Umpire (Bucknor) has been the scapegoat for India's poor performance.
The ICC made racial vilification provisions public, before the series, and now won't enforce them.
It will be a long time before the ICC recovers from Speed's mismanagement, but the time for Speed to go is yesterday.
India makes a monkey of the rules
ReplyDeleteAndrew Bolt
A seedy deal and a new dispensation:
WORLD cricket authorities have caved in to the game’s financial superpower, India, and Cricket Australia has incurred the wrath of its own Test players by pressuring them to drop a racial slur charge against Harbhajan Singh.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India had even chartered a plane to take its players home tomorrow if the Indian player’s three-Test suspension - for calling Australia’s Andrew Symonds a monkey during the Sydney Test - had not been overturned at yesterday’s appeal in the Federal Court in Adelaide.
Cricket Australia was anxious to have the charge dropped because it feared its board would be sued for a figure understood to be about $60 million if India quit the tour…
It is understood the Australians had expected Harbhajan would be hit with a one-match ban and were dismayed to hear he had avoided any meaningful punishment.
One Australian player, who refused to be named, told the Herald last night: “The thing that pisses us off is that it shows how much power India has… Money talks.”
The decision amounted to a straight-sets victory for India, which had the Jamaican umpire Steve Bucknor sacked and sent home after it complained about his incompetence during the acrimonious SCG Test. And after India threatened to go home, Harbhajan was freed to play in the rest of the series when his appeal was delayed - despite ICC stipulations that it should take place within seven days.
And from the stump microphones at the game comes evidence that Harbhajan wasn’t claiming innocence at the time:
Symonds walks up to Harbhajan at the end of an over.
Symonds: “Go and yell at your teammates .... You called me monkey again.”
Matthew Hayden: “Twice. You’ve got a witness now champ.”
Hayden approaches Harbhajan.
Hayden: ”That’s the last time.’’
Harbhajan: “No listen he started it.’’
Hayden: “Doesn’t matter mate, it’s racial vilification mate. It’s a shit word and you know it.”
But this isn’t just about the power of money. I suspect it’s also about the revenge of a people who have long been the butt of racism themselves and are now luxuriating in their new power to assert themselves against a white power.
Understandable, but still ugly.
UPDATE
And this claim by Board of Cricket Control India vice-president Rajiv Shukla is as absurd as it is vainglorious:
From the beginning, we have been consistently taking the stance that it’s practically impossible for us to accept racist charge against an Indian player.
Or maybe it’s just a threat.
UPDATE 2
And this is even sillier, and confirms my suspicions:
VR Manohar, Harbhajan’s counsel, said: “BCCI made it clear during the hearing that racism charge was like laying blame on the board and the nation, and should be dropped.”