'Just try to stay awake until they bring the rubber chicken lunches round' PHOTO: GETTY
The mysterious blazer-wearing, back-scratching lizard people who make up the ICC have been having one of their periodic meetings. Here’s what they have ruled – and the real reasons behind their decisions…
Ruling: Decision Review System change of heart
Surprisingly going against the wishes of India, the ICC decreed in June that this would henceforth be mandatory for all Tests and ODIs. Have now u-turned and said that technology will be bilaterally agreed on a case-by-case basis by the competing countries in a series.
Reasons:Unacceptably high numbers of Indian batsmen being given out in series against England. MS Dhoni told them to change their mind. Urgent commercial need to ensure Indian batsmen are not given out in future series; and guard against doomsday scenario of Sachin being given out on review and thus being denied his 100th 100. Possible reintroduction once 100th 100 has been passed to make sure nobody ever beats record has been mooted.
Ruling: Shelving of the proposed World Test Championship
Finding itself in the unfamiliar position of having come up with an idea that a lot of cricket fans actually quite fancied – the 2013 tournament in England between the top four Test sides – the ICC panicked and have now decided to push the five-day championship back to 2017 at the earliest.
Reasons: India no longer very good at Test cricket. You can play five ODIs in the time it takes to get through a boring old Test match. Moving personal plea from Suresh Raina not to have to face Test match bowling again.
Ruling: Possible reintroduction of the Champions League Trophy
The resultant hole in the 2013 schedule looks the perfect size for the broadcaster-friendly Carling Cup of international cricket, a 50-over tournament so lacking in prestige that even England have reached the final in recent years, but one that does not exclude the weaker nations.
Reasons: People in India like 50-over cricket. Ravi Shastri has a window in his schedule and can do some commentary. No sane person would rather watch England v South Africa play a Test at Lord’s when they could be watching Zimbabwe v Bangladesh in the round-robin phase of an ODI tournament. Why should sides be financially penalised for not being good at Test cricket?
Ruling: Qualifying for 2015 World Cup simplified
Having decided in June that the 2015 World Cup would feature just ten teams, the next obvious move was to backtrack from that and say that there would be 14 teams involved. The ten Test teams gets in, even the ones that don’t really play Tests but can be relied upon to do the right thing when it’s balloting time. They are joined by the two winners of an easy-to-understand, user-friendly system where the top two teams from the Intercontinental One Day Cup will join four others from the World Cricket League, including the third and fourth placed teams in ICC Division Two and the winners and runners-up from Division Three, plus the winner of the UEFA Fair Play Award, the third-placed act in the Eurovision song contest, and Somerset, in a massive qualifying tournament-cum-fight-to-the-death held at the NEC Birmingham and presented by Holly Willoughby and Sunil Gavaskar.
Reasons: Because we can. What’s the point of having administrators if they don’t administrate?
No comments:
Post a Comment