the doosra: ICC - Incompetent Cricket Council

Somebody once asked me if I believed that everything happens for a reason. I said I don't know. But there's definitely a reason behind what ICC has to say, hide or reveal. And time and again, in face of controversy the governing body of cricket has found itself - hmmm... how do I put it delicately- useless. It's similar to UN in the sense that it seems to have power but neither has any sort of control. At least, UN can send some peace troops to the troubled region.

But there are no peace corps under ICC's umbrella. The administration is governed by the assumptions of future repercussions of an unruly event that has come to the fore rather than taking the course of due process.

Let's take the Darell Hair issue and for a moment let's ignore whether Hair was right or wrong. What's interesting is that ICC chief Malcolm Speed suddenly found his calling, i.e. not to lie and disclosed the offer Hair made to the media. Well, I'm happy that it came out and was not covered up but Speed's revelation was hardly a result of soul searching. Obviously after the test match farce, ICC would have been put under the microscope and voila, we'd have found out that it has no power and Hair, after all wouldn't be umpiring in Pak, Lanka, Bangladesh matches. But to show that it's in control it'll keep Hair as an elite umpire.

So the email was a God-send for Speed. By revealing it, he killed Hair's career and in the process saved ICC of the wrath from the sub continent, where, by the way, the money is!

Now it doesn't matter if Inzamam is fined or not. Pak can always take solace in the fact that Hair is gone. There won't be much of a hoopla. Probably it will be a very light or no sentence at all for Inzi.