The Emperor's New Clothes
By Triambukh
January 9 2008
All of us during our childhood would have read the tale about “The emperor’s new clothes”. The current imbroglio involving the ICC, the BCCI, the Cricket board of Australia and their respective teams is so similar to that tale, that it has become more than a laughing matter.
The ICC being the emperor, the BCCI, the Indian cricket team and the cricket
authority of Australia being the adoring public, the Australian cricket team
completely disrobing the ICC in front of everyone’s eyes, the ICC code of
conduct rules being the invisible robe the emperor is supposed to wear and the
spectators and the media being the kid who cries “The emperor is naked”, only
here the emperor is deaf and senile in addition to being naked.
All and
sundry know that the ICC appointed umpires are incompetent and there is a strong
case to be made by a few teams that umpiring is biased. The merits and non –
merits for the case of bias are subjective and lets leave it at that, since
there will never be an unanimous agreement regarding that.
What everyone
does know that the umpiring standards, the technical aid available to umpires
and last but not the least the umpires themselves need a whole scale overhaul.
There are two ugly issues that were thrown into the limelight from the
Sydney cricket test, one being the umpiring debacle and the other which is far
more serious banning a cricketer based on racism.
All the visiting teams
have over the ages have constantly complained about the umpiring standards in
Australia. ICC has consistently ignored this complaint and never addressed in an
open and transparent way that would put to rest this issue; instead every year a
meaningless statistic of 93% of the decisions that were made are correct is
bandied about, without providing any context.
ICC has a long list of
inconsistent decision making when it comes to applying the ICC code of conduct
for the players. The lack of transparency only makes these inconsistent
decisions seem like a psychic pulling out a tarot card and rambling on rather
than any logic or precedence behind it.
Step 1 - Code of conduct
document
Next the code of conduct itself, needs an overhaul, lets
try to deconstruct from a layman’s view the contentious rules in the ICC Code of
conduct handout.
Level 1 offense
• Using language or a gesture that
is obscene, offensive or insulting.
Offensive or insulting to the players,
ICC, the umpires, the spectators? Each country in the ICC has different
standards for offensive and insulting language and gestures.
• Abuse of
equipment clothing, or any part of the ground.
Definition of abuse is
severely lacking.
• Showing dissent at an umpire's decision by word or by
action.
The definition of dissent is certainly lacking.
• Excessive
appealing.
The definition of the term “Excessive” is lacking, is it
excessive if one appeal is held on for more than 1 minute or does excessive mean
appealing every other delivery?
Level 2 offense
• Showing serious
dissent at an umpire's decision by word or action.
The level 1 term
“Dissent” has not been defined hence serious dissent can mean anything or cannot
mean anything
• Public criticism of a match related incident or match
official.
Definition of criticism is very badly lacking, does ICC mean that
the results should not be discussed in public? Will Andy Symmonds be pulled over
for breaking this rule since he stated that “ He was out” and not given, that
definitely is a public criticism of a match official.
• Inappropriate and
deliberate physical contact between players during play.
Inappropriate and
deliberate need to be defined
• Deliberate distraction or obstruction on
the field.
Distraction or obstruction on the field needs to be defined,
distraction to who and why.
• Using language or a gesture that is obscene,
offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another player, umpire, referee,
team official or spectator.
This is complete poppycock, since level 1
offense is so badly defined adding “seriously” does not make it any more of a
stronger rule.
Level 3
• Using language or gestures that offends
race, religion, color, descent or national or ethnic origin.
To even attempt
to understand this rule and implement in a fair and just manner is completely
impossible. For example if you ridicule the religion of humanitarian secularists
is it considered to be an offense or scientology?
It beggars belief that
ICC the head of the international cricket has a code of conduct a third grade
student will find loopholes in.
Malcolm Speed is supposedly a barrister
before his current avatar as the CEO of ICC, it is incredulous to imagine he
does not know the loopholes in these rules or he does not care.
Now that
all the problems are identified, let us try to address the issues at hand
constructively.
Step 2 – Revamp ICC
The ICC as it stands
today should be dismantled. Ex – players who have the sufficient skills to
govern ICC need to be identified and hired as the administrators of ICC. A top
notch legal team needs to be hired to redraft the code of conduct document from
its current apathetic state. A suggested listing of players who could serve as
the games administrators are provided below
Australia – Mark Taylor, Ian
Chappell.
Bangladesh – NA
England – Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain
India – Sunil Gavaskar, Sidhu
Pakistan – Imran Khan, Wasim Akram.
South Africa – Kepler Wessels, Barry Richards
Srilanka – Ranatunga,
Mahanama
West Indies – Clive Lloyds, Richards.
Bi annually each
Board can propose its candidates and the players the first XI of each team vote
for its administrators. Additionally, a top notch legal team, a PR team and a
business team could be hired as consultants to administer ICC’s daily
activities.
Step 3 – Revamping of umpires and standards
The following section suggests a series of steps to upgrade umpiring
performance and how to keep the umpires rating transparent to the fans
Age limit
An Age limit on the umpires, every spectator knows that
umpiring is a demanding job which also requires keen vision and auditory
capabilities. It is a proven medical fact that as people age they lose control
of their faculties. Why is the ICC not adding 2 and 2 together to come up with
4?
Umpire Rating
Umpires are rated by an independent council after
each series, the independent council should consist of members of the countries
which are not involved in the current ongoing series. Depending on this review
umpires contracts are either renewed or discarded for the next series, the
spectators do not want yearly reviews. Just like how each player is judged on
each single series umpires should be too.
Aid of technology
Umpires
should be provided with as much technological assistance as possible.
Rights for third umpires
Third umpire and the match refree should
have the right to over turn any decision made by the on field umpire if they
deem it right.
Media obligations
At the end of each days play,
the umpire would be required to explain any decision with visual proof if
necessary to journalists just like the captains required to attend media
sessions.
There are only a number of times we can shout “The
emperor is naked”, if the emperor doesn’t want to get dressed it is our
prerogative to change the emperor and not worry about his clothes anymore.
The players, the ICC and the sport of cricket itself owes its gratitude
to its fans, and if the fans are not satisfied with the product, the fans don’t
lose anything it is the sport itself that would lose.
The ICC has been much too weak in the past and needs a a new broom. It doesn't need the BCCI, with its bloc of votes, threatening to pull out of tours because one of their players got suspended.
It doesn't need the players, and the 2 countries who played in the Sydney test plus Pakistan are the worst, acting like schoolboys and ruining the game as I knew it as a young man.
It doesn't need umpires as incompetent as Bucknor and Benson ruining what could have been a marvellous test match and even despite them there was some good cricket.
It needs some tough men on the ICC Board to make sure the ICC management is pro-active.
Those players you mentioned would be good but they will never serve in the ICC. Mind you: Sunny was as petulant as the worst of them and even tried to drag his batting partner off the ground one day over here - and Ian Chappell was as churlish as anybody on the field in his day.
Imran, Wasim, Barry Richards and Wessels would be my pick from that list and I would throw in Sir Paddles also from NZ.
Maybe put Ranatunga in too. He was petulant on the field and a royal pain in the @rse to Aussies, but we respected him because of that. At least he is a strong man.
What's Miandad doing these days?
if these ideas are deployed - 95.75 % of problems would be solved - remaining 4.75 % problems would be ok to live with
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Tendulkar is the greatest cricketer of all time
My choice for the reps from India would have been- Sandip Patil & Ravi Shastri, I think Sunny goes to sleep in the ICC meetings he's already attending...
But then if we are gonna ask for definition of every word, then there is no end.. we can always ask for definition of the definition...
The way I see it is that most of those ICC rules are fair now and are a product of past turmoils...
but ICC has not still sorted out the key problem.. that is diminishing the subjectivity of the person acting as Judge and who is untrained to act as judge...
They need to sort that out first.. I reckon they think a person close to the action is best suited to judge.. but I disagree... for ex: devoid of current turmoil, procter is most likely to rule "Monkey" as offence and rule "Ba.s-tard" as just another word... if it was a Srinath who as match ref, then he would do the opposite... but the person close to action has a feel for the situation and his input is needed to get a complete picture...
The only solution then is to constitute a "Boards of ex-Players, say 3, 1 2 ex-judge + the match ref to hear all charges that are bought up...
we can then have consistency across the spectrum...
There is a cost factor here, but hey ex-players should also live.. right guys?? and this is one way to give back to them (only coloreds & minimum 1 indian rep though)... In today's world of Video calling, bringing them together should not be big ask too.
the COC rules can be updated a bit.. but most of us know what "abuse of equipment".. what ponting did when he threw his bat( didn't see the Gnags one).. I know what is excessive appealing.. its appealing after the Umps says OUT or NOT OUT.. etc etc..
other points are all valid
for me the key reason for these turmoils are Umpire incompetence or bias... if people don't think they are getting a fair go, they its just a matter of time before another turmoil breaks out...
also look at all media analysis... most of them, even ones from India are not focussing on the appeal/referral system...
for me the lightining rod to solve these issues is the appeal/referral system...
but bring up the appeal/referral system and these same guys will trot out excuses from
1.Umpires are crickets tradition. so need to be retained
2.No Umpiring unpredictatblity, may as well have robots playing
3.Umps reduced hat holders and ball counters
4.Umps are human
5.Umps make 92% right decisions... which means there is 4 wrong dismissals per test match and that is ok... just tradition
Its this insistence of protecting the Umpire over having a FAIR game, that leads to turmoils like this...
it looks like these guys prefer more of such turmoils than the only right solution...
well as long as Umps can remain as holy cows, anything goes...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008:01:09:03:11:56 by kappax.
Highly paid ICC officials should surely be able to think some of this up independently, instead of sitting on their rear end, sucking up money, and letting cricket go downhill every day.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008:01:09:03:08:19 by sarma p.
I agree with you in regards to the meanings of words, but these are serious charges and they do deserve some kind of explanation, even if the explanations do not satisfy laymen like me who has no clue of laws and their interpretations it should be good enough that lawyers can make sense of them, A question to Birbal our own home bred lawyer
, in the three level of offenses that ICC lists out, is it possible to incriminate any person on any of those charges and get them charged in a court of law?
As an aside ICC according to my knowledge is a fairly wealthy organization, why do they have all their laws and stuff in wikipedia and moreover their website is icc-cricket.yahoo.com? What kind of url is that. As the leader of cricket dont they have to project a good image?
and Bucknor showing his true colors
