Monday, October 8, 2001 The International Cricket Council presentation at Lord's this morning took place in front of a giant photo backdrop, showing a batsman getting out caught behind. The picture was blurred, but you could just about discern the familiar figure of Graham Gooch. Out of date and out of focus: just like ICC, you might have thought. But nearly everything that Malcolm Gray and Malcolm Speed went on to say was contemporary and focused. Inclusive, transparent, keen to step up the pace of change: this was ICC, but not as we know it.

The two Malcolms pledged themselves to so many things, it was hard to know where to begin (see news story). Their speeches were a bit like Tony Blair's extraordinary lecture to the Labour conference the other day - so full of idealism and ambition, scope and hope, that you could forgive the slight absence of practicalities.

They said they would eliminate match-fixing within a year: good. They said they would stamp out sledging and excessive appealing: good (those who argue that the verbals add spice may have forgotten that Mike Atherton's duels with Curtly Ambrose, conducted in dignified, rolling-eyed silence, were never dull). They said they would get more batsmen walking: good. They said they would attract more people to the game, regardless of race, gender or religion: excellent.

Some of the proposals were less appealing. An elite panel of umpires? Good ... but eight of them is not enough. The magnificent eight will lead miserable lives, hurtling from one jet-lagged controversy to another, collecting vast numbers of air miles, which they will never feel like redeeming. The saving grace of the touring life is that at least you spend your summers in your home country, but the only way the umps will still get that consolation is if Shep abandons his sub-post office for Bondi Beach, or Steve Bucknor buys a flat in St John's Wood.

A one-day version of the Test Championship: good, but how do you structure it? The Test Championship revolves around home and away series. The one-day game, with its endless triangulars and quadrangulars, doesn't work like that. Speed's wording hinted that he has yet to solve this puzzle. Suggestions on a postcard, please - or rather in an e-mail (feedback@wisden.com).

For years, Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has criticised ICC for being toothless, verging on useless - a governing body unable to govern. Today, ICC set about addressing most of those concerns. The Malcolms talked a good game; now they have to turn the fine words into action. We wish them well.

Tim de Lisle was editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly magazine from 1996 to 2000 before switching to Wisden Online.

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