Category: Cricket

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From good to bad in the space of a week

AUSTRALIA’S national cricket team seems to swing from bad to good to bad in the space of a few weeks or sometimes even a week. The team was thrashed in the second Test of the ongoing Ashes series, bounced back to win the third by 267 runs, and today, the first day of the fourth Test, was bowled out for 98.

Yes 98, the lowest score at the MCG for an Ashes Test. Australia was bowled out for 83 by India in 1981 at the MCG and has been dismissed for scores below 120 in home Tests four times since 1990.

At the close of play, England is 59 runs ahead with all its wickets intact. A miracle is required for Australia not to lose this Test and with only sporadic showers forecast for one remaining day of the Test, even the weather can be counted out as a saviour.

But why do these dramatic swings of fortune take place? In Perth, Mitchell Johnson bowled very well, aided by a pitch that was helpful to fast bowlers. The scores were not high – the highest innings total was 309 by Australia in its second innings. England made one run more than this in both its innings combined.

Johnson managed to produce quite dramatic late swing which brought him a number of wickets; he took nine in all for the match. Elated by his success, this was put down to changes in his action. Nobody factored in the easterly wind that blows in Perth and tends to make the ball swing. Nobody also thought about the fact that Perth is an open ground, allowing the wind to sweep over it, not a cauldron like the MCG, venue for the fourth Test, where the imposing structure prevents any wind from sweeping through.

Everyone expected Johnson to repeat his heroics. A little less was expected from the other hero of Perth, Ryan Harris, who also took nine wickets, though a number of them came after England had thrown in the towel in its second innings and had resigned itself to defeat.

Neither bowler has been able to do a thing on the MCG track. And when you have only 98 to defend, you need wickets fast to put pressure on the opposition. Skipper Ricky Ponting, who is likely to lose the captaincy if the series is lost, gave Johnson three overs but saw the paceman leak 17 runs. As the England batsmen kept scoring steadily, Ponting fell back on the more economical bowlers.

Whenever Australia is caught on a wicket where the opposition can make the ball move sideways, its batsmen stand exposed. They do not know which ball to leave and which to hit. They dab at balls that can be well left alone; only Mike Hussey seems to know where his stumps are. But today, Hussey also failed; by the law of averages he was due a low score, having scored more than 500 runs in the series to date.

One of Australia’s openers lacks technique (Phillip Hughes) and the other is a makeshift opener (Shane Watson) who would be much more comfortable batting at six. Ponting is no longer the best batsman in the side and therefore should not be at one-drop. But his deputy, Michael Clarke, cannot handle the pressure of the one-drop and hence bats at four.

After the success of Perth, Australia chose to go into the MCG Test with four pacemen, the first time in decades that the country has played without a regular spinner at this ground. It appears that Ponting was ready to insert the opposition if he won the toss and had picked four pacemen for that reason. Given that one only has a 50 percent chance of winning a toss, it looks as though the Australian captain had left his brains at home.

Even if Australia manages to pull the chestnuts out of the fire in this Test and go to the final Sydney Test level at 1-1, it is unlikely to win the series. As the holders of the Ashes, England only needs to draw the series in order to carry that precious little urn back home again. The prospect of rain affecting the game in Sydney is very high, given the existing weather patterns.

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What Australia needs is a new cricket captain

A MOUNTAIN of sorts has been scaled by the England cricket team by defeating Australia by an innings and 71 runs in the second cricket Test in Adelaide. The last time Australia suffered an innings defeat at home was in 1993 when the West Indies were the victors.

The loss has put Australia in a position where it needs to win two of the remaining three Tests and ensure that England does not win any more. Judging by the cricket that has been on display in the first two Tests, this is wishful thinking of a very high order.

England owes more to its inspirational captain Andrew Strauss than anyone cares to document; when nobody notices a captain, it can confidently be said that he or she is playing the role of leader to perfection.

Much praise has been lavished on the batsmen like Alastair Cook, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen who have scored heavily for England; the bowlers like James Anderson, Steve Finn and Graeme Swann have earned their share of praise too.

But nobody has bothered to remark that when England was up against it, facing a deficit of 221 on the first innings in the first Test, it was the captain, Strauss, who put his head down, scored a century and led the way out of the woods.

Strauss was coming off a third-ball duck in the first innings and was nearly out off the first ball of the second. That makes his achievement all the more creditable.

By the time he was out, for a well-made 110, Strauss had ensured that Australia would have to bat again; the deficit was only 33 when he was dismissed. As a true captain should, he led from the front.

On the final day of the second Test, when Swann was troubling the Australian batsmen the most, with the home team four wickets down and looking like it had a decent chance to save the game, Strauss took the decision to take the new ball.

This, despite the fact that Anderson, one of his new-ball bowlers, had bowled badly in the innings up to that point and his other new-ball bowler Stuart Broad had been ruled out of the game and the series due to a stomach muscle strain.

It was a bold move but his instincts proved him right. Finn got rid of the danger man Mike Hussey, Anderson took two wickets and when the ball was about seven overs old Swann came back into the attack and wrapped up the innings.

His counterpart, Ricky Ponting, has been a woeful failure. His field placings have been bizarre. He has backed the wrong players – Xavier Doherty is no Test-class spinner – and has played only one innings of note, an unbeaten 51. In the second Test, he made 0 and 9, hardly the contribution that a captain should make when the team has its back against a wall.

Yet Australia is looking at everything other than replacing him in order to try and do better in the remaining three Tests. There will be a few changes in the team for the third Test – Doherty will be dropped and Doug Bollinger may be sidelined as well. The same fate may befall Marcus North. Yet Ponting will remain.

Tacking the effects without dealing with the cause is common in today’s world. It is harder to cut down a tree than to remove the branches. Until Ponting is replaced, Australia will continue to plumb the depths of world cricket.

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Bowlers pay the price, batsmen get off scot-free

PREDICTABLY, Australian left-arm paceman Mitchell Johnson has been dropped from the team to take on England in the second Test in Adelaide.

Johnson returned figures of 0-66 and 0-104 in the first Test, was dismissed for a duck when he batted, and also dropped a catch.

When a team fares well below its best, someone has to be made the scapegoat. Ricky Ponting wasn’t exactly the wisest of captains in the first Test but he has escaped scrutiny.

But what of Marcus North? The left-hander has been having a dreadful time with the bat – but nobody is talking about the possibility of bringing in someone to take his place.

Let’s have a look at the two players, going back all the way to the middle of the year. In two Tests against Pakistan (played in England because of the security threat in Pakistan), North made 0, 20, 16 and 0. He got 6/55 in the second innings of the first Test and did not bowl in the other three innings. Johnson returned figures of 1/31, 0/74, 1/71 and 1/41. His best effort with the bat was 30. North was marginally ahead.

Australia then played a two-Test series in India. North made 0, 10, 128 and 3. He bowled in the first Test, getting 1/39 and 0/8. Johnson got 5/64, 0/50, 3/105 and 0/42 and scored 47 in one of the Tests. I would say that Johnson was clearly ahead in this series if one matches the two players’ performances.

Johnson’s performance in the first Ashes Test has been detailed above. North got 1, did not bat in the second innings, and took one wicket in England’s second innings, the only wicket to fall. Hence, that wicket was of no relevance; the only difference would have been that England would have finished with 0-517 instead of 1-517 and the England openers, Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, would have become the holders of the record for the first wicket partnership in Tests, displacing Nick McKenzie and Graeme Smith of South Africa who hold the current record of 415, set against Bangladesh in 2008.

Remember one thing: North is primarily playing as a batsman and Johnson, despite having made runs on occasion, is considered the main strike bowler.

Has Johnson fulfilled his primary role? No. Should he be dropped? Well, yes, one can make a case for that. But then the same logic should apply to North. He has done as much as Johnson over the last five Tests, in fact, less.

The argument used to justify North’s inclusion is that there are not many options to fill his spot. Rubbish, there are plenty of batsmen – David Hussey and George Bailey, to name just two – who can fill the role of a number six. Hussey is 33 and Bailey is 28 – but remember, Australia once played a 38-year-old, Bob Holland, to try and defeat the West Indies in 1984-85. And who can forget Colin “Funky” Miller who made his debut for the country at the ripe age of 34?

Age is not a problem. Neither is the lack of batsmen. No, the problem is that cricket has been and will always be a batsmen’s game. The bowlers always bear the brunt when punishment is doled out.

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The bowlers failed but so did the captain

IT’S the fourth day of a Test match, the first of a series that is the most important of the year for your country. Your team is 202 runs ahead at the start of play; the opposition has knocked off 19 runs of a 221-run advantage that your boys gained in the first innings.

First thing out on the field, what would be your reaction as captain? To put as much pressure on your opponent by using the most threatening and intimidating fields possible or taking a milk-and-water approach that indicates an ambivalent attitude?

Do you show faith in your bowlers by packing the slips cordon and keeping two short-legs to occasionally get in the face of your opponents? Or do you use a standard field, an indication that you are basically a bob each way man even in a situation when your team is clearly in an advantageous position?

The Australian bowlers have copped a lot of flak for letting England nullify a 221-run first-innings deficit and allowing England to make a mammoth 1-517 in its second innings in the drawn first Test.

But the Australian captain Ricky Ponting has escaped scrutiny in toto though the tactics he employed on day four were those of a coward.

At the start of play on the fourth day, Ponting had two fielders on the boundary. For what? Was he trying to win or draw? He had 202 runs to play with, he had nothing to lose.

Remember, Australia is the team which has to win back the Ashes; for England a drawn series will suffice. One cannot blame England for looking for such a result as the whole point of playing five Tests in Australia is to retain the Ashes. That is the prize, nothing else matters.

This is not the first time that Ponting’s inability to captain the country properly has let the team down. It happened earlier this year in England. He is far too cautious and often looks to his own interests, rather than that of the team.

It is unlikely that any remarkable new talent is going to be unearthed in some part of Australia soon enough to make a difference to the Australian team in the remaining four Tests; any new blood brought in will be much like the old.

A trend of picking players based on reasons other than merit has been around for too long and mediocrity has crept in. Australia is fifth in the world Test cricket rankings and that is a good reflection of its strengths.

Ponting is favoured by the selectors because he has become an administration man. He knows when to speak and when to keep his mouth shut. Some months ago, people were theorising that if Australia failed to regain the Ashes, he would be stripped of the captaincy.

But that seems unlikely in the wake of reports that Michael Clarke, his deputy, is not exactly the flavour of choice with the rest of the team.

If Ponting regains the Ashes, he will stay as captain for the World Cup that begins in February next year. And it is also likely that he will continue to captain Australia until he chooses to retire – which may well be in 2013 after the tour of England. Ponting has said often that he wants another chance to win the Ashes in England, having lost two series in 2005 and 2009.

But if he fails to regain the Ashes over the next four Tests, then there will be plenty of pressure from people to play him as a batsman only. He still has some of the magical touch that he displayed in his early career and is easily the best batsman in the team once he gets going.

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Australia’s cricketing disaster

SHANE Warne, the Australian leg-spinner, was always keen to be captain of the national cricket team. Unfortunately, the Australian cricket administrators are obsessed with the idea that a man who leads the country’s cricket team should also be a saint. Warne did not get the job because of his numerous sexual peccadilloes and Ricky Ponting was given the gig instead.

That apparently still rankles because Warne often embarrasses Ponting with unsolicited advice and comments after he retired. The latest such episode occurred on the final day of the second Test against India, when Warne questioned the field placings provided for Nathan Hauritz, the alleged spinner in the Australian team.

India was chasing 207 to win on the final day of the Test. No team had ever scored that number of runs on the Bangalore wicket to win a Test until that day. Yet India did, with ease. The two Indian spinners, Harbhajan Singh and Pravin Ojha, had helped to bundle out Australia for 223 in its second innings. Both obtained a great deal of purchase from the wicket. The Indian fast bowlers obtained plenty of reverse swing. The Australian bowlers could not do a thing to trouble the Indians.

Australia is now ranked fifth among the nine countries that play Test cricket. It is below India, South Africa, Sri Lanka and even England. Calls are now starting for Ponting’s head. Warne’s comments thus assume a lot of significance.

One reason for Warne’s utterances may be the fact that Steve Smith, the spinner who has Warne’s backing, is yet to be picked for a Test ahead of Hauritz. This, despite the fact that in the first Test of the series against India, we had the peculiar situation of India fighting against the odds to chase down a total of 216 on the final day and Hauritz not bowling even though the pitch was taking turn. What made it even more odd was the fact that Smith was not in the team and Ponting’s spinner of choice was the occasional trundler Marcus North.

Australia rarely picks two spinners. Hence when one man is picked, it is assumed that he is the prime spin talent in the country. Hauritz, sadly, is not up to the mark; he is the poor man’s spinner and does not deserve to play. Ponting does not know how to handle him and that shows. Ponting’s failures are beginning to affect his batting as well.

The next opponent for Australia is the old foe – England. The Ashes which England holds are up for grabs in the Test series that begins in November. That is a matter for even more worry. Ponting won the last home series for the Ashes but promptly lost the next series in England. This was a repeat, as he had also lost the 2005 series.

A loss at home may well mean the loss of the captaincy as well. That could be a blessing for Ponting as he still has a lot to give as a batsman. He is still a class act in full flow. Whether he will be able to function under another captain remains to be seen. But he would do Australian cricket a service by stepping down and playing as a batsman instead.

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History tells us: the ICC must take the blame for match-fixing

IT WOULD be amusing to read all about the apportioning of blame by various people in the wake of the recent revelations about match-fixing, were it not for the fact that the whole thing is so damn serious. But then one should not be surprised about all the breast-beating that is going on – it is common for people to concentrate on the effects and forget the cause.

It does not take much effort to go back to the event that provided the seed for the growth of match-fixing in cricket. Remember, one is not talking about betting on cricket, that has been around for as long as the game has been played.

In 1980 the first international one-day cricket match was held in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. This was sanctioned by the International Cricket Council and it marked the start of trouble. The matches in Sharjah increased in number and India’s win in the 1983 World Cup gave the tournaments held in the desert emirate a fillip.

For one, the Sharjah tournaments were built on one factor – the enmity between India and Pakistan. There was always a third team invited (or even a fourth) to make up the numbers, but given the large numbers of Indian and Pakistani expatriates in the UAE, they were the focus.

Additionally, the Sharjah cricket organisers opened the doors to illegal betting of huge amounts by people of dubious reputations. Apart from the cricket, celebrities from both India and Pakistan were invited to attend. The UAE is a peculiar place – you can walk in to the country with a million dollars in a suitcase and no questions are asked but if you carry a Bible in, you may be questioned for an hour or more. Before oil came into the picture, Dubai was better known as the source of gold smuggling into India.

Both India and Pakistan have massive amounts of black money in their respective economies and lots of this money was used to wager large amounts in Sharjah. A great many dubious people offered awards in Sharjah to buy popularity and these were accepted without any hesitation – Pakistan batsman Javed Miandad earned more than a million dollars in 1986 when he hit a six off the last ball of a game to defeat India and win a tournament for Pakistan.

The UAE is known to harbour a number of people who are wanted in other parts of the world, people like the smuggler Dawood Ibrahim, who fled India in 1993 after he was being sought by police as a suspect in the bombing of the Bombay stock exchange that same year.

It is inconceivable that the ICC was unaware of all the goings-on but it chose to turn a blind eye. Cricketers were benefitting financially – the Sharjah organisers used to present three cricketers with money at every tournament – and the ICC was being paid the fees it sought. What’s more, any ICC bigwig who visited during the tournament was treated like God.

But the tournaments provided the means for illegal bookies and people of their ilk to gain access to players – one merely had to host a reception in Dubai for the cricketers (no liquor is served in hotels in Sharjah, hence the choice of Dubai which is just a 20-minute drive from Sharjah) during the tournament and one could pal up with the best players from India and Pakistan.

The money attracted other teams too and as the years went on the organisers scored their biggest coup by signing the West Indies, at that time the hottest property in world cricket. Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka all came and played and were feted and wined and dined. Nobody raised any question as to why cricket in the desert was needed. It was something like the Packer days again, only this time the ICC gave the whole shindig its blessing.

Prior to Sharjah, there was hardly any talk of throwing a game of cricket. It took a few years for the bookies to develop their contacts to the point where they could make demands. Sharjah began hosting two tournaments a year soon after it started operations and this provided a fast track for unsavoury activities to grow.

in the 1990s , there was more and more talk about matches being influenced by factors other than the players’ ability. On the Indian tour of the West Indies in 1997, one Test, when India fell for 81 when chasing a little over 100 for victory, was a game that came in for some examination. An Indian writer, R. Mohan of the well-known Indian paper, The Hindu, lost his job after his betting activities came to light. And by the turn of the century, a few cricketers had been found out and banned from the game.

It is easy to gain access to junior players once one knows the seniors. And mind you, the seniors need not be in the pay of bookies, but merely acquainted enough to be persuaded to introduce others to the men who pay cricketers to fix games. After all, if you were told that Al Capone wanted to meet you during the heyday of that gentleman’s existence, would you have turned it down?

The ICC never objected to cricket being played in Sharjah. The only reason why the tournaments are no longer being held there is because there is no space on the international calendar after the future tours programme was put into practice. The ICC has even shifted its own headquarters to Dubai – simply because it benefits from the no-tax regime in the UAE and also gets free flights from Emirates airline – which is owned by the ruling family of Dubai – for its officials. When an international body has sold itself out in this manner, can it ever hope to call attention to the wrong-doings of its players?

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Why Ricky Ponting should be sacked

RICKY Ponting is one of the best cricketers in the world to watch when he is on song. The man has played 145 Tests, captained Australia since 2004 and is a pugnacious fighter all the way.

Despite all this experience and these attributes, Ponting does not deserve to captain the country any more. Not after he decided to bat in the second Test against Pakistan in Headingley last night and saw the team blown away for 88.

Ponting is a great cricketer. He is not a good captain, something I have pointed out in the past.

With all his experience of having played in England, why did Ponting take such a decision? It is being put down to a Test in England in 2005 when he put the home team in – without Glenn McGrath in his ranks – and ended up losing the Test and the Ashes.

He is not the only captain to be haunted by a decision made in the past, one which cost him dearly. Steve Waugh was similarly loath to enforce the follow-on after he did so in India in 2001 and lost the Test and finally the series.

But a captain is expected to have some intelligence and also to use it. The conditions in Headingley were treacherous – exactly the kind of weather that would help bowlers like Mohammed Asif and Umar Gul who pitch it up and can move the ball either way. And what transpired was a slaughter of a very good Australian team.

One just has to see the way Michael Clarke was dismissed to understand what Australia was up against. The ball from Umar Gul swerved at the last minute and uprooted Clarke’s middle stump – and he is a man with very good technique, one who generally plays down the right line.

It’s not so long ago that Pakistan had Australia on the ropes – in Sydney last year. That time Asif was the wrecker-in-chief but Australia managed to escape. Asif was much more difficult to play in Headingley and that should give an indication of exactly how bad the conditions were.

But would Australia have had Pakistan in as bad a position if they had sent them in? Given the way that the Australian bowlers performed when Pakistan batted – in similar conditions to which Australia had been knocked over – they could do little. Pakistan got away to an excellent start and had practically overtaken their rivals before a wicket had fallen.

A captain should have the maturity to think a decision through, not react in a standard way that is pre-determined. Each Test is different and one can impose oneself on the opposition by bowling first just as well as one can by batting first. Ponting, great cricketer that he is, lacks that maturity even today. Either that, or he has no faith in his bowlers – and given the way they performed, one could not fault him for that.

I doubt that Shane Warne, the greatest captain Australia never had, would never have made such a decision. Ponting did and that shows the difference in reading the game between him and the leggie.

Even if Australia does escape from the hole that it has dug itself into due to Ponting’s muleheadedness, it would not justify his decision. Captains must think and then act. Not the other way round.

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Cricket is all about politics

SPORT and politics should not mix. How often have you heard that meaningless line? It is untrue of any sport – and most of all cricket.

Following the humiliation meted out to former Australian prime minister John Howard – the man was roundly snubbed by Asian and African cricketing nations in his bid to become the vice-president of the International Cricket Council – it is worthwhile having a look at the political implications of a sport like cricket.

The game was spread from Britain to its colonies at the time when the British Empire ruled the waves. It took hold in India (and by extension in Pakistan and Bangladesh when those nations were formed as breakaways), the West Indies, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

When Australia and England play each other for the Ashes, there are deep political connotations – England shipped convicts to Australia as its first settlers and thus Australian resentment towards the former “mother country” knows no bounds. Beating England at any sport is welcome Down Under, but it is especially sweet when it is for the Ashes.

When India and Pakistan play cricket, it is something akin to war. Pakistan was stripped away from India in a ghastly act of partition, a result of Britain’s divide and rule policy, and that wound has never healed. So great is the animosity, that when Javed Miandad hit a six off the last ball of a one-day tournament in Sharjah to give Pakistan victory over India – and this was in a minor tournament – he was showered with riches by Pakistani businessmen.

Friendly games between Indian and Pakistani supporters can turn into violent confrontations in third countries like England – and have, on many occasions, become just that.

When Bangladesh plays Pakistan, there are again political overtones. Pakistan treated the former East Pakistan as though it was a slave colony and when it broke away, with India’s help, in 1971, Pakistan was mortally wounded. It was shamed in front of the world – at the moment when its UN envoy was claiming that things were under control, TV footage of the head of Pakistan’s army surrendering to Indian forces at Dhaka race course was being broadcast worldwide. These insults have never been forgotten. They carry over onto the cricket field.

Take the games between the West Indies, a team formed from among a group of islands in the Caribbean, and England. Many black people were shipped to the Caribbean as slaves by Britain back in the days when Britain ruled these islands. For former slaves to defeat their masters is a very satisfying thing – and to the West Indies defeating England is the most important thing in cricket. It does not matter even if they lose to minnows like Kenya.

Politics in cricket is deep-rooted and will never go away. Indeed, if it did, then the intensity of the sporting contests would decrease and the crowds who come to watch would dwindle. When brown and black people get the better of white people, it is always sweet, simply because of the way the West has dominated the East for so many years. Cricket is another substitute for war and it is probably a preferable outlet to fighting on the battlefield.

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Howard has been rejected, not Australia

WENDING his sorry way back from Singapore, after having been roundly snubbed by the International Cricket Conference after his bid to become the vice-president was rejected, former Australian prime minister John Howard is now trying to paint his rejection as a snub for Australia and New Zealand.

There is a one-word answer to this claim: bullshit.

It was the Australasian region’s chance to nominate a candidate and it was time for New Zealand to have a chance considering that, in the past, on both occasions when it was the region’s chance, an Australian took up the job – first Malcolm Gray and then Malcolm Speed. New Zealand had an excellent candidate, Sir John Anderson, a man who has worked with the ICC and shown remarkable aptitude as an administrator.

Howard claims that the cricket board of Australia approached him. This seems highly unlikely. What seems more likely is that Howard pulled a few strings in order to get his name put forward. He is a person who never wanted to leave public life; indeed, well before the 2007 elections, there were more than enough indications that if Howard continued to lead the coalition, it would meet with electoral disaster.

But Howard did not care; he hung on and suffered the ultimate ignominy. A sitting prime minister, he lost his seat to a political novice, former ABC newsperson Maxine McKew. If he had not been defeated, he would no doubt have hung on as an MP – the fact is he has no other skill other than being a politician. He has no administrative skills, no inter-personal skills, he can only manipulate public sentiment based on the lowest common denominator. And he has the imagination of a dry cucumber.

If any person other than Howard had been put forward as the nomination for ICC vice-president, there would have been no issue. But consider:

  • Howard did not support sporting sanctions against apartheid South Africa but was willing to back sanctions against Zimbabwe, leading to the obvious conclusion that it did not bother him when discrimination against blacks was being practised;
  • he used the military to board a ship full of asylum-seekers – Afghans and Iraqis – which was moving into Australian waters
  • he made no secret of the fact that reconciliation with Aborigines was not a priority of his, despite the fact that Australia has given its first people the raw end of the stick;
  • he has been known as someone who discriminates against people of colour
  • he never did a thing when Pauline Hanson was spreading the message of xenophobia across the country;
  • he was a staunch supporter of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, a gross injustice against a Muslim country;
  • he has been the greatest fan of shock-jock Alan Jones who, on more than one occasion, has been guilty of backing racist thugs. most notably those who were responsible for the riots in Cronulla.

These are just a few of the things which make it clear that Howard has a distinct problem dealing with people of colour. He would have been a disaster dealing with an organisation where the majority of the members are non-white – and the ICC is just that.

If Mark Taylor had been nominated would he have been rejected? Allan Border? Steve Waugh? Bill Lawry? Ian Chappell? Dennis Lillee? Jack Clarke, the current president of Cricket Australia? Damien Fleming? Paul Reiffel? Was Malcolm Speed or Malcolme Gray rejected? Howard is the problem, not any competent Australian.

Howard can continue to make brave noises about not withdrawing his nomination. In truth, he has nothing to do with it; only the boards of Australia and New Zealand can advance or withdraw it. By wheedling his way into contention, he has put the two boards in an awkward position.

Given that India is among the countries that has given Howard the thumbs-down, there is little chance that he will succeed in becoming the ICC vice-president. Had India not objected, Howard would have been accepted. But given all the reasons above, it is no wonder that Asian and African nations feel uneasy about accepting him as the chief of world cricket.

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Howard’s rejection by the ICC is reason to rejoice

WORLD cricket has finally shown some commonsense in rejecting the bid by former Australian prime minister John Howard to become the vice-president of its governing body.

The post of vice-president serves as a two-year incumbency for the next president and the nominations for this position come from different cricket-playing regions in turn. This time it was the turn of the Australasian region and Howard was nominated by Australia while New Zealand put forward an eminent administrator, Sir John Anderson. Politicking ensured that Howard, the worse of the two candidates – by more than a mile – was put forward.

This happened in March. It was assumed that the vice-presidency was a shoo-in but it was not to be. Six countries put their names to a letter on June 29, objecting to his nomination and saying that he was not a suitable candidate. They have asked for the name of another candidate to be put forward.

Howard has had little to do with cricket. He is the type of man who will confess a love for anything if it gains him political mileage and cricket is one game that is very popular in Australia; indeed, many people describe the Australian cricket captain as the second most powerful man in the country.

The Australian media is trying to make out that Howard is an extremely principled man and that the cricket boards which have objected to him are trying to prevent the entry into world cricket of a man who will try to put the house in order. Rubbish.

Howard showed during his 11 years as prime minister that he was willing to sleep with the devil if it would keep him in power. He had no principle – apart from that of doing anything to stay in control of his party. He did nothing to fight against the xenophobic policies of a woman politician named Pauline Hanson, put Aboriginal reconciliation back by a few centuries, was as anti-asylum-seeker as they come, sent the military to board a ship carrying refugees to Australia and did everything possible to discriminate against non-whites.

When it comes to things cricketing, there are a couple of things about Howard’s past which are unlikely to have endeared him to the six boards – Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, and the West Indies – which objected to his nomination. One is his crude comment about Sri Lankan leg-spinner Muthiah Muralitharan, calling him a chucker. Howard’s words were, “they proved it in Perth with that thing.” If anything, the reverse was true.

The second thing is Howard’s refusal to let Australia tour Zimbabwe in 2007. At this point, white farmers were being dispossessed of their land by blacks, with official support from the government of Robert Mugabe. While this decision is certainly justified, it must be borne in mind that Howard was deeply enamoured of South Africa during its apartheid era and only constant advice that it would harm his political prospects kept him from making a visit there in the 1980s. He opposed sanctions against South Africa but was more than willing to institute sanctions against Zimbabwe once Mugabe came to power.

It is, thus. difficult to avoid the conclusion that he was disturbed only by one kind of discrimination. When blacks were the target, it did not seem to bother him.

Cricket has always been a political game. It was taken up by countries colonised by Britain and for a long time Australia and England had veto power over decisions taken by the world body. Power has slipped from these two countries as the ability to generate finances to support the game has grown in India. Today, four-fifths of the money in the game comes from India which distributes it to all the cricket-playing countries.

As the old English proverb goes, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” Once India decided to reject Howard, it was only natural that Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh would go along. That would have been sufficient to sink his candidacy.

There are other factors why India has decided to reject Howard. It is doubtful that Australia commands a great deal of respect in India, following the attacks on students which have taken place over the last three years. Additionally, all the Australian kow-towing to China and its refusal to treat India on the same level would hardly have gone down well in New Delhi.

Despite all the righteous talk that politics has no place in sport, the reverse is true. A politician who wants to keep his options open as a sports administrator later on in life would do well to be more circumspect than Howard has been.

It’s worthwhile remembering here that Australia and England ran world cricket for a long time with a condescending and patronising attitude towards the other non-white nations. South Africa was part of the clique and the fact that it would not play against non-white nations caused no disquiet either in London or Canberra.

More than once, rule changes were introduced to curb the rise of the West Indies in order that England, Australia and South Africa could continue to be the dominant powers. The first time in the 1950s, when Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine were bamboozling the opposition, the front-foot lbw law was changed. Not many seasons after that, at Edgbaston in 1957, Colin Cowdrey and Peter May used their pads to negate everything which the two spinners could throw at them in a partnership of 411. The spin twins never recovered from this.

The next time the West Indies threatened to dominate was in the 1960s and Wesley Hall and Charlie Griffith were their spearheads. A campaign began to label Griffith a chucker (Richie Benaud was in the forefront); it succeeded to some extent but did not daunt the fierce Barbadian. Then the front foot no-ball rule was introduced. The pair were reined in.

The last time the cricketing authorities attempted to rein in the West Indies was in the 1980s. Clive Lloyd’s fearsome four-man pace battery had started its triumphant run and the question of bouncers was raised. Mind you, world cricket’s governing body had never been exercised about bouncers when England’s John Snow and David Brown were running amuck, nor when Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson were causing havoc in the ranks of opposing teams. The number of bouncers per over was clipped back to one but that did not get in the way of the West Indies finally squashing all and sundry under their heels.

Discrimination has always been part of cricket since its inception as an international sport. Australia, thus, has no reason to whinge now and complain that it is not getting a fair deal. The wheel has turned and both Howard and Australia should just shut up and cop it sweet.