Sunday, June 25, 2006

The fined of the century

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)
Why is India the chosen destination for all of ICC’s fines and suspensions? L Suresh finds out…

There was a time when the cricketing world was a small place – there was England and there was Australia. The two countries played each other all summer in England and when winter set in, would move to Australia where they would play on until it was summer again in England. Everyone was happy and things were going real smooth, until New Zealand, West Indies and a few other countries joined in. But the last straw was when Asian countries began to fancy themselves and jumped into the fray. And to make matters worse, India evolved into the marketing hub of the game, Pakistan worked out the art of reverse swing before the rest of the world, Sri Lanka produced a spinner who was giving Shane Warne a run for his records and Bangladesh dared to beat Australia at home – thereby encroaching on England’s territory because defeating Australia was its sole prerogative, never mind if it happened once in 25 years.
That’s when the ICC decided to put its foot down (fervently hoping that some Asian country would come under it, thereby starting the tradition of Asian countries getting squashed Down Under) and decided on a Code of Conduct that would govern the behaviour and conduct of all international cricketers – as long as they were from Asian countries. Besides, most of them - especially Indian cricketers – were earning pots of money from endorsements. So match referees could penalize them at will.

Obviously this discrimination came to light much before the ICC had hoped it would. So, after a rushed meeting in its new Asian headquarters, the ICC arrived at a simple explanation for this - every fifth person on earth was an Indian and hence it was inevitable that more Indians were found and fined. So for years, a nation found itself at the receiving end from the Malcolms – Malcolm Marshall, Malcolm Gray and currently, Malcolm Speed.

Things reached flashpoint when a white commentator referred to an Indian player as a ‘fine cricketer’. Whether this was a rich compliment or a poor English pun was not known, despite much debate on the topic on all the leading news channels in the country. In a bid to placate the big bosses of Indian cricket, the ICC announced a Hall of Frame for all those (Indian) players who were penalized for something that they didn’t do. Sachin, Sourav, Dravid and Sehwag topped the list and needless to say, this led to the likes of Hayden and Ponting commenting that most batsmen from the sub-continent were selfish as they constantly played for glory. Being an impartial body, the ICC promptly rectified this by establishing another list of all those who got away scot-free – the Real McCoys.

Here is a sneak preview of both lists – the hits and misses:

Sachin Tendulkar – beaten by a blade of grass
How could a man who normally let his bat do the talking be handed down a sentence? The ICC and the cricketing world (comprising Australia, South Africa and England) were truly stumped. But as a wise man probably said, “He who is tormented by the blade of a bat shall seek solace from blades of grass.” The answer lay in a few blades of grass that got stuck to the seam of the ball. Songs of hallelujah reached a crescendo in the ICC headquarters as replay after replay showed Sachin ‘tampering the ball’. Match referee Mike Denness decided that since the grass was always greener on the other side, Sachin was trying to bring a bit of luck to his team with the rub of the green. A suspended one-match sentence and a 75 per cent fine of his match fee followed.

What Sachin didn’t know then was that plucking blades of grass from the ball was wrong, but plucking the ball from the umpire’s hand wasn’t. That’s what his good friend Lara did, when he snatched the ball from Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf and ‘waggled a finger’ (okay, not THAT finger) at him. Match referee Jeff Crowe thought it was a non-issue, Lara thought he was upholding the spirit of the game by snatching the ball and ICC's General Manager-Cricket Dave Richardson thought that Lara was ‘frustrated but didn’t show dissent’. And since cricket is a thinking man’s game, everyone got away with it.

Rahul Dravid – a sweet tooth and the bitter truth
What comes after bottle caps and Vaseline in the list of things that can be used on a cricket ball to make it ‘do things’? Sweets of course, decided the ICC. Match Referee Clive Lloyd found Rahul Dravid guilty of ball tampering during the VB tri-series in Australia in 2004, as he believed that Dravid intentionally applied an ‘energy sweet’ on a ball. Rumours spread thick and fast that different kinds of sweets had varied effects on the ball – energy sweets made the ball go faster, hard-boiled sweets made it bouncier and using a stick of chewing gum helped in bowling the slower one. None of these were proved of course, but since it was insinuated that using a cough lozenge on the ball can choke up the runs, Lloyd didn’t need any further clarity on the subject. Dravid was fined 50 per cent of his match fee and was strictly told that the only thing that can accidentally fall from a player’s mouth is an abuse. That was exactly what happened with Allan Donald.

It happened one night in 1997 when India met South Africa in the finals of the tri-series. The natural elements were at their furious best. The rains descended from the heavens, Allan ‘White Lightning’ Donald kept striking at the same place – the wickets, and Dravid stole Donald’s thunder as he clobbered him for boundaries. Donald decided to try his famous ‘faster one’ – which meant rushing straight at the batsman and hurling abuses at him before he could duck. Donald positioned himself right in front of Dravid and the cameras and uttered each word with such perfect pronunciation that nervous parents reached out for the remote, lest their kids asked them what the ‘uncle just said’. However, match referee Barry Jarman had just turned to his side to get a soft drink and he missed out on all the action. Since he believed that restraining fast bowlers would take the fizz out of the game, Donald was sent away with a warning.

Virender Sehwag – no mass appeal
He can lose form, he can lose hair and very frequently, he can lose sight of the ball. But one thing that Viru has never lost is the kind of mass appeal he has amongst millions of his fans. Obviously certain sections of the cricketing fraternity saw the writing on the wall rather early, as he smashed a ton on his test debut in South Africa. So Mike Denness decided to penalize him for what he is known best – his appeal. Viru was fined 75% of his match fee and was suspended for one test for excessive appealing. Viru was removed from the line-up, but since Denness was also removed as match referee, the ICC decided removed the official status tag from the test. So Sehwag had to sit out again for another test, even as his detractors hoped that this would form some kind of a cycle. They had to wait until June 2006. As Viru found form with the ball in the West Indies, he was fined 20 per cent of his match fee – again for excessive appealing, after a hearing by match referee Jeff Crowe.

Of course, some match referees are averse to hearing things, so they turn a deaf ear to the proceedings. Like in the case of Shane Warne when he gave Andre Nel an earful during Australia’s tour of South Africa in 2006. The microphone picked it up and beamed it live to millions of shell-shocked television viewers, but match referee Chris Broad decided to play it by the ear and said that he didn’t hear a thing.

Sourav Ganguly – sometimes, a no-show works better
It would be the first of many for Sourav, the first Indian captain to believe that to give is better than to receive. And it would be one of those days when umpire David Shepherd would have a thought blurb over him that said ‘Shepherd is thy Lord’. It was the 1997-98 home series against Australia and Sourav was given out lbw by Shepherd. While Sourav showed his bat, indicating that he had a nick, Shepherd promptly showed him the way to the ICC hearing. Match referee Peter Van Der Merve showed him the futility of any explanation and told him that since he was sitting in on the disciplinary hearing, he would be sitting out of the first one-dayer against Australia at Kochi.

In the very next series, Shepherd would have a ringside seat to the proceedings as he watched Michael Slater froth at the mouth, arguing vociferously with umpire Venkataraghavan and then abusing Rahul Dravid for staying on when a controversial catch that Slater had taken was turned down by the third umpire. Shepherd, being the leg umpire, decided not to have a hand in the proceedings and watched on as the matter was reported to Cammie Smith, the West Indian match referee who gently chided Slater and told him that he would ask him to kiss and make up if the incident was ever repeated.

The ICC has also instituted some lifetime achievement awards – to Sourav Ganguly for the number of times he has been targeted by match referees, to Shane Warne, Ponting and McGrath for ten golden years of great escapes and of course, to match referees Chris Broad, Jeff Crowe, Clive Lloyd, Cammie Smith and Mike Denness, without whom the ‘fined of the century’ list would not have been possible.
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 25 June, 2006)