Mendis magic provides silver lining to ICC's...

Tag : Sri Lanka Tea
Friday July 11, 02:35 AM


Ajantha Mendis could have come out of a scriptwriter's dream, achild's fantasy. JK Rowling could have sent him, armed with a spell("bowlingus destructivorous" a young wizard at long oncould have said, his wand smuggled in, past evil ICC dementorsdressed as umpires). All of us have dreamt of moments like these,often in inter-school finals, but this soft spoken armyman hasshaken hands with them. He has done with his wrist and fingers, anda straight elbow, what a bullet from a gun cannot. (Can a soldier,knowing a bullet has been fired at him, get out of line only to seeit curling the other way and knocking him over?).
It was magnificent to watch, the batsmen getting their justdesserts after mercilessly mauling the bowlers, their fangsremoved, their weapons confiscated, all over the park. It justreminded all those who want to remember that cricket is still agame of ball versus bat not my bat versus your bat.
It raises questions about the temperament of some of our youngbatsmen. Are the pitches, the conditions and the bats becoming suchstrong allies that they are being lulled into believing that thisis all they will encounter? And how will they prepare for theunexpected? How will they cope with a strange bowler or withseaming conditions? This is going to be the real problem with T20and terribly one-sided surfaces like those in Karachi. If batsmenare treated like business class passengers on a luxury plane howwill they be able to travel in a general compartment in a train thenext day? Or are we reaching a situation where only pitches thatfavour batsmen will be produced? Pitches like the ones in the AsiaCup cannot produce good cricket as most of us understand it.
Bowlers need care, as does our game, which suffered some prettygrievous wounds at the ICC meeting. The funny thing is that everycountry got what it wanted and the game suffered. Zimbabwe got thebest deal. They wanted money, they got it; they didn't wantcricket, now they don't need to provide it. And England got whatthey wanted; the money that will flow in from organizing the nextworld T20 and a political victory by denying Zimbabwean players aworld stage. It has very dangerous implications. Can teams be paidoff in return for a denial of permission to play cricket? So if,for example Pakistan doesn't want Australia to participate in theChampions Trophy, can they pay them off and ask them not to come?Where does it stop? Either Zimbabwe is in the ICC or it isn't. Astaging association cannot have discretion over who it invites andwho it doesn't to a world event.
Worse still is the decision to change the result of the Oval Testbetween England and Pakistan. Little that I have seen in worldcricket over the years staggers me as much as this. Maybe theumpire made a mistake but hang on, a team refused to play cricket.That is inadmissible. We can't have a situation where a team sitsin a dressing room because it doesn't like what is happening in themiddle. And we certainly can't have a situation where it isrewarded by having a result changed. So what is next? If India hadsat in the dressing room in Sydney protesting about the umpiring,would the match have been labelled a draw? Would the series havebeen level 1-1? Couldn't England have protested when Sreesanth wasclearly out lbw just before the rain came down at Lords and deniedthem a win? That series should have been 1-1 then?
Once a cricket match is over, it cannot be revived, results cannotbe tampered with. It is dead from that point of view. Onlygallantry awards can be conferred posthumously. In an effort toplacate members, we are creating very dangerous precedents. And youcannot wish them away by saying "this cannot be treated as aprecedent". The same procedure that allowed this will do soagain. What next? Sms votes on whether a player is out? Where arethe statesmen? The custodians of cricket?
Meanwhile it is two months to the Champions Trophy. We do not yetknow where it will be played; indeed, if it will be played. Thereare spectators who like to follow their teams, corporations whowant to reward employees, sponsors who need to make plans. The timehas come to take a call.
Maybe another Mendis will emerge there! What joy that will be!