CHENNAI: For years the International Cricket Council has been on snooze mode. Waking up once in a while when there is an outcry over something like player behaviour and sledging, only to go back to sleep, oblivious of what is happening. The inconsistency with which it reacted to such offences, amid calls for tougher sanctions, had only given rise to belief that the governing body was too cautious and not courageous enough to ensure rules are followed.
Going by incidents in Durban, Colombo, Port Elizabeth, such thoughts are vindicated. But at least, the ICC has decided to come out of the snooze mode in the wake of the ball-tampering incident in Cape Town involving three Australian players. What role the worldwide outrage played behind the ICC finally having a rethink is visible in CEO Dave Richardson’s comments.
In a significant admission, Richardson revealed that the ICC had got its priorities wrong, as it looked at the commercial aspect of the game rather than the spirit of the game. “Fans support cricket because it is played in a certain way. If we don’t realise, we are in danger of losing them. Spirit of cricket is very important. The biggest eye opener has been how important the fans see the spirit of cricket. We were complacent... T20 cricket, entertainment, run rates, sixes, shorter boundary ropes and all that we were focused on. We forgot what keeps our game special is the spirit. We have a responsibility to shape how the spirit of cricket is brought to life in the game in the 21st century,” Richardson said.
Foremost among the concerns is player behaviour. The ICC had plans to address this in its annual board meeting in Kolkata next month. Recent events have pushed it to the top of agenda. Now, the ICC’s Cricket Committee, MCC and a group of former players like Allan Border, Anil Kumble, Shaun Pollock, Courtney Walsh and Richie Richardson will undertake a review.
“We have seen a number of incidents of poor behaviour in recent weeks...Sledging, send-offs, dissent against umpires’ decisions, a walk-off and ball tampering. This has been perhaps one of the worst periods in recent memory for consistently poor player behaviour and the global outcry in relation to ball tampering is a clear message that enough is enough,” Richardson said.
Elaborating on what sort of review is expected on the Code of Conduct, Richardson said, “There are two things. Whether all the offences in the code are appropriate and secondly, are they graded according to seriousness of the incident. What are the elements of each offence. One man’s banter is insult to another. Similarly, one’s way of showing passion is a send-off in another man’s view. We have to define them. There should be no ambiguity.”
Though CA imposed severe bans on Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft, Richardson admitted that the current sanctions under its Code of Conduct make the ICC handicapped. “It has been an eye opener for me, that, ‘Hang on, ball tampering around the world is considered cheating.’ If we are going to take the attitude that everyone does it, if we allow a little bit of lip balm, raise the quarter seam on another, then where do we draw the line? We probably need to look at it again. That, I think we identified as the need to look at the level of the penalty imposed specific to ball tampering.” he said.