CricInfo Home
News Home

NEWS FOCUS
Rsa in Pak
NZ in India
Zim in Aus

Domestic
Other Series

Through his varied lifetime, Wes Hall has come to know what pressure and responsibility are all about.

As fearsome spearhead of the West Indies attack in his pomp, as chief selector, team manager and now president of the board, as director of personnel at three of the Caribbean's most prominent companies and as minister of both Government and church, he has always been in a pivotal position.

So he will be again when the executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC), comprising a representative from each of the ten full members, convenes in Cape Town next month.

It has all the makings of a fractious meeting over a couple of contentious matters.

The prelude would not have been out of place in the build-up to a heavyweight title fight, except that no one has yet been bitten on the leg.

In one corner are the four Asian members India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh with the expected support of South Africa.

In the other are the president Malcolm Gray and the chief executive Malcolm Speed, both Australian, with the almost certain support of their compatriot and England's representative on the executive.

On the sidelines are New Zealand, Zimbabwe and the West Indies.

Of all those around the table, only Hall can speak with the feeling and authority of a Test cricketer. None of the others would have played the game even at first-class level.

The West Indies Cricket Board president will find himself surrounded by construction magnates, business tycoons, retired military officers, lawyers, government appointees and the like.

Some may not know the difference between a googly and golf ball but all are well versed in the intricacies of cricketing politics and high finance. Many have egos the combined size of Eden Gardens and the MCG.

When the debate becomes heated, tempers flare and the well-being of the game is threatened by the petty bickering, Hall is the one who has the credentials to remind them of their obligations.

The issue that triggered the present discord dates back to last November when the ICC match referee Mike Denness fined five Indian players, among them the deified Sachin Tendulkar, and banned another, Virender Sewag, for one Test on disciplinary charges after the second Test against South Africa.

Indignant at what it saw as excess and discrimination, since no South African was similarly dealt with, the Board of Control for Cricket in India refused to accept Denness' ruling or his appointment for the following Test.

The ICC promptly responded by declaring the Test unofficial but, with the compliance of the South African board, it went ahead anyway, whatever its status and without Denness.

It seemed, at the time, that an immovable force, in the form of the Indian board president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, had met an immovable object, in ICC chief executive Speed.

The first Test of the subsequent series in India, against England, was in jeopardy if Dalmiya refused to withdraw Sewag from the team.

In the end, a face-saving measure was devised by which Speed and Gray, acting on behalf of the ICC, agreed to India's recommendation to set up a commission to review the entire match referee system.

After two rounds, the combatants seemed level on points. But it was obvious there would be Round 3 and probably many more before the bout was over.

No sooner had the ICC appointments emerged from the computer at Lord's than Dalmiya objected to the three members chosen Mr Justice Albie Sachs of South Africa, a member of the country's constitutional court, and former Test cricketers Majid Khan of Pakistan, one-time chief executive of their board, and Andrew Hilditch of Australia, now a lawyer.

Gray and Speed stood firm and set the date of the commission's first meeting, for yesterday. It seemed a final position but Dalmiya, himself a former ICC president, can never be counted out.

He flew to Sharjah for a meeting of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) last weekend and, with the clever persuasion that earned him his unexpected election as president of the BCCI for a second term last year, marshalled a unified Asian bloc and the support of South Africa to challenge the ICC edict once more.

An ACC resolution called on the ICC to put the review commission on hold until it could be discussed by the executive committee meeting in Cape Town. With five of the ten ICC full members signing, Gray had no alternative but to accede.

But the ICC president could not conceal his fury at the turn of events. He clearly didn't want to.

It is extremely disappointing that the work of a properly constituted commission, established after extensive consultation with the BCCI, has to be halted because of pressure from within the executive board, he said.

However, as a matter of proper corporate governance, the ICC president has a duty to reflect the wishes of board members.

That is the quarrelsome background to the upcoming Cape Town meeting. It requires impartial, level-headed mediation to prevent it becoming even more fractious and Hall is ideally suited to provide it.

Nor is the Denness issue the only one that has engendered a sense of persecution among Dalmiya and his Asian colleagues.

The head of the Pakistan Cricket Board, Lieutenant-General Tauqir Zia, is still simmering over the refusal of the West Indies to complete their scheduled tour last year that caused the series to be moved to Sharjah.

In addition, both Zia and his Sri Lankan counterpart remain hypersensitive over any expressed doubts over the dubious actions of Shoaib Akhtar and Muttiah Muralitharan.

Zia refuses to accept that, with the situation in neighbouring Afghanistan and on the Kashmir border unsettled, there were reasonable grounds for the West Indies' decision, as the recent kidnapping and execution of the American journalist Daniel Pearl indicates.

While there is unmistakeable cause to question the bent elbows of Shoaib and Muralitharan, whatever the University of Western Australia might report, Zia and the Sri Lankans will urge the ICC executive to close the book on that subject once and for all.

© The Barbados Nation