Two Cheers

Cheer number one for Mr. Dalmia,  for standing up to the ICC and insistingthat the Indian team will not take the field if Mike Denness were acting asMatch Referee, thus virtually forcing the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA)to fall in line.

The UCBSA media-release is revelatory in its frankness and deserves quotation infull:

"The United Cricket Board of South Africa has been placed in anextremely difficult position regarding the staging of the third Castle Lager/MTNTest match at SuperSport Park, Centurion, from tomorrow.

"We were informed this morning by the President of the Board ofControl for Cricket in India, Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya, that the Indian team will nottake the field if Mike Denness is acting as Match Referee," said UCBSAChief Executive Officer Gerald Majola.

"South African cricket and the South African public in general cannotafford the cancellation of this Test match. Although the crisis has not been ofour making, we have received reports of protests at South African embassies inIndia and our country has been caught up in this issue. The South AfricanGovernment, through Sports Minister Ngconde Balfour, has instructed the UCBSA totake whatever action is necessary to ensure that the Test match goes ahead.

"In view of these issues, the UCBSA has asked Mike Denness to standdown as Match Referee in the interests of cricket.

"However, Mr Denness indicated that he was a properly appointed ICCMatch Referee who was in South Africa to act as such and he could not step downfrom that position.

"United Cricket Board Chief Executive Officer Gerald Majolatelephoned ICC CEO Malcolm Speed to inform him that the UCBSA had no alternativebut to ask Mr Denness to recuse himself and, facing his refusal to do so, hadindicated that the UCBSA was unable to allow him access to the Match Referee'sposition at the ground for the Test Match.

"Under the circumstances, South African Denis Lindsay, who serves onthe ICC Match Referees Panel, has agreed to be available to stand in as MatchReferee and the BCCI has agreed to him replacing Mr Denness.

"We sincerely regret that the matter has come to this, however we arepleased to announce that the third Castle Lager / MTN Test match will go aheadas planned. We are certain it will be a thrilling contest and we hope the SouthAfrican public will give their full support to their team as they go all out toplay for their country," concluded Mr Majola"

ICC of course was quick to react to the proposed plans announced by BCCI and UCBSA:

"It has been suggested in South Africa that a replacement match couldbe staged if the Test does not go ahead. If this were to happen it would not berecognised by the ICC as a Test match. It would not be officiated by an ICCreferee or umpire and neither the result nor statistics would be included inTest match records.

"The disciplinary action taken by Mike Denness in Port Elizabeth willcontinue to stand. Specifically, this would mean that the one match ban servedon Virender Sehwag would now apply to the first Test match against England inMohali in December."

In short, the test match is unofficial, if we are to go by the ICC mediarelease.

And for a change they seem to have been perceptive too: "undoubtedly there would be further developments in this matter" .

As I write this, comes the news that Mr. Dalmia has "rubbished" the ICCthreats. It seems he is confident that all the criteria for derecognising thismatch are not fulfilled, which perhaps explains the decision not to playVirendra Sehwag in the "test" tomorrow.

But I am, to put it mildly, not terribly happy with this. Why not go thewhole hog and play Sehwag? Why should the Indian manager be making polite soundsabout "honouring" Denness' decision? Isn't there a thing calledhonouring the principles involved?

A friend whose opinion I value highly had this seemingly radical suggestionearlier in the day. Let me quote the relevant bits of his  e-mail:

"This is the time for India to pull out of the third test, quit the ICC(just as Garri Kasparov did with FIDE, the chess organisation) if necessary,form a new cricket council with support from other boards, basically say FUCKYOU, and watch those boards who do not join the new ICC slowly get impoverishedand die. What the US is to the world economy, India is to the world cricketeconomy, and we should make stupid cricket bureaucrats across the worldunderstand this very clearly."

I would love to quote the rest of his e-mail too, but since it gets kind ofgraphic (and I may already have offended some sensibilities by allowing thefour-letter word in the quote. Sorry.) with detailed proposals to take care of theMenace of Denness, maybe I should be a bit circumspect. Why this vehemence? Iasked, since he is the gentlest and most thoughtful of human beings I know. Hisresponse:

"Why am I so enraged about this? I have not been so enraged aboutanything ever. But I find that I am not alone. I have friends who aretotally normal corporate rat race types, general managers and vice-presidents inCitibank and places like that, who call me up and tell me that they wake up inthe middle of the night intensely wishing to wreak physical violence to MikeDenness. I am sure there are lakhs of Indians like us."

Indeed there are, if we are to go by the collective outpouring in discussionboards, letters to the editors and protests on the streets. It is, if you'dindulge me a bit, the soul of a nation long suppressed, finding utterance. (Nevermind that the utterances are only muttered imprecations, when not loud, vile abuse.) Andthey would all miss Sehwag out there in the field tomorrow. So that shouldexplain why I felt constrained to save the traditional third cheer.

There is plenty more to be said on the likes of Mr. Raj Singh Dungarpur, forexample, but maybe some other time.

Oh, cheer number two? Why, to Ganguly, of course. For speaking out andtelling Steve Waugh to Shut Up. I am told he said it twice. So maybe he deserves three cheers all for himself.

Perhaps you disagree? So let's hear from you in FreeSpeech then: Should India have played Sehwag?