So long as player power was confined to money matters, someone like me, a spectator who saw more of the game, supported it
Omar Kureishi22-May-2002So long as player power was confined to money matters, someone like me, a spectator who saw more of the game, supported it. But as with trade unions which interfere with management, player power must not be allowed to run the game.One after another, Australian players are issuing statements that they are not prepared to tour Pakistan. The latest is Mark Waugh who, probably will not even be selected.Mark Waugh may have other reasons for not visiting Pakistan. It was he and Shane Warne who opened the can of worms of match-fixing. Having accused Salim Malik of offering them a large sum of money for “throwing” a Test match, it transpired that both these players had been regularly receiving money from a bookie for providing him with information.The Australian Cricket Board had fined them but had kept this under wraps until a newspaper got hold of and published the story. Both Mark Waugh and Warne had refused to appear before Justice Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim who had been asked by then BCCP to carry out an inquiry.I don’t really want to go over the tawdry match-fixing business but simply to put Mark Waugh’s statement in perspective. It is Australia’s tour of Pakistan later this year that is of concern to me.The tour is in jeopardy because of an unrelated bomb blast in a hotel adjoining the one where the New Zealand and Pakistan teams were staying and which led to the Karachi Test match being abandoned.Bomb blasts, unfortunately, have become a fairly common occurrence. This does not make them any less abhorrent. They can occur in London or New Delhi or any other country but when they occur in Pakistan, they somehow make Pakistan a volatile and unsafe country and cricket tours, somehow, appear to be the first casualty.India refusing to tour Pakistan is for reasons wholly political but the West Indies refusing to do so, for security reasons, was a bit too much and ultimately, the matches against them were played at a neutral venue, Sharjah.Now there is talk of the Australia series being played at a neutral venue and Tangiers, of all places, is being mentioned. The statements being issued by Australian players, Steve Waugh, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Warne constitute interference in administrative matters and their purpose is not only to bring pressure on the Australian Cricket Board but they serve to build-up public opinion against the tour. This is a case of the tail wagging the dog.When the ICC had given its blessings to the idea of neutral venues, I had warned that a terrible precedent would be set. And if players are allowed to decide which countries they will tour and which they won’t, it would be curtains for international cricket. The PCB is not saying much beyond that it is allowing the dust to settle.I have no doubt that the PCB is in touch with the ACB but something must be done to counter the adverse public opinion that is building up in Australia and Pakistan must put its case, not only to the ACB but to Australian media.We need to counter the statement being issued by certain Australian players, who, in case, must not be allowed to go public with their ill-informed views. There is still some time for the tour. Why are these players rushing to judgment?Steve Waugh has been sacked as Australia’s captain for the One-day Internationals. His captaincy of the Test team is hanging by a thread. Does he feel that his team will lose to Pakistan in Pakistan and in the process, he will lose the captaincy?We have had to hear, ad nauseum, about the flat tracks that visiting teams, particularly from England, must encounter in the subcontinent. What about the flat track at Lord’s on which the Test match against Sri Lanka was played?They don’t come any flatter unless we take into account the wicket at St. John’s at Antigua. The wicket at Lord’s fooled both teams, both went in with four seamers and left out the spinners.In fact, it was being mentioned by the commentators, Ian Botham and company that had England won the toss, it would have put Sri Lanka in. Just as well for England’s think-tank that Sri Lanka won the toss and batted.Sri Lanka piled on 555 and at that, some of their batsmen threw away their wickets including Sanath Jayasuriya who ran himself out foolishly. The Sri Lankans brought the sun with them and Lord’s was lit up. And we saw the Sri Lankan batsmen at their brilliant best and England without Darren Gough and more importantly Ashley Giles was stuck with four mediocre fast-medium trundlers.The Lord’s wicket which is seamer-friendly was never so flat and so batsman friendly though England had to follow-on, confirming that English cricket is not yet on an upswing.It is an insult to Sri Lankan cricket that this is the first ever Test series it is playing in England. Sri Lanka has been playing Test cricket since 1982 and yet never managed more than an one-off Test match in England.A tour of England is still considered important just a Wimbledon is important in the tennis circuit. I am not so sure that I approve of all the changes that have been made at Lord’s ever since I first went there in 1962.There is still something special about a Test match at Lord’s and as one enters the Grace Gates, one senses a kind of spirituality. Cricket crowds in England have changed but not the crowd at Lord’s.There are fewer yahoos and none of the drunken louts that one encounters on other grounds. Lord’s is still a social occasion and going to watch cricket at Lord’s has a snob value of which I approve.