Board Games — a fatal flaw in Lord Woolf’s review

Sharda Ugra, in ESPN cricinfo

On Wednesday, all was sunshine and roses. The announcement that the ICC’s executive board had decided to split the role of its president and create a new job of chairman was accompanied by the board patting itself on the back. The board’s push for an “ambassadorial” rotational presidency, with the burden of governance on the new chairman was, the ICC’s CEO, Haroon Lorgat, said, “consistent with the recommendations of the Woolf Report“.

The Woolf report pointed out frostily that its recommendations “collectively should remain a priority and should not be cherry picked”. At first sight, a couple of the cherries looked far too juicy to not be picked. The president and chairman issue apart, the board’s assistance programme to help “lower-performing Full Members and higher performing Associates / Affiliates” also turned out to be in line with the Woolf panel. Given that the Woolf report was finally presented at lunchtime on Tuesday to the board, ending up on the same page with two of 65 recommendations the next day was not a bad start.

Lord Woolf’s Damning Review of ICC Governance

Peter Lalor, in the Australian, 3 February 2012

AN independent review has slammed sections of the International Cricket Council, taking aim at full members such as Australia for their role in the mismanagement of world cricket. While the report has avoided identifying individuals or countries, it has strongly condemned the abuse of financial power at board level – a charge often levelled at the Board of Control for Cricket in India.

There is further condemnation of members who have conflicts of interest, which seems squarely aimed at Indian president N Srinivasan, and condemnation of countries who do side deals to protect their own interests – an accusation easily levelled against Australia for some of its recent voting patterns. The report said it even considered holding secret ballots to encourage members to break the power of the financially strong boards who might bully others, but shied away from it in the interests of transparency.

Frightened and confused: young Pakistani Mohammad Amir trapped by the underworld

Michael Atherton, courtesy of The Weekend Australian, 5-6 November 2011

 Pic by AP in Australian online

THE day after Mohammad Amir pleaded guilty for the first time, a member of his family was approached in a mosque in Lahore. The message was a simple one: tell Amir to watch his step and watch what he says.  These threats were referred to obliquely by Justice Cooke in his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday, when he talked of Amir’s inability to elaborate on the “pressure” that he was put under to bowl the no-balls at Lord’s, pressure that was one part of the basis of his mitigation plea.

“You have referred, in material presented to this court, to threats to yourself and your family, saying that there are significant limits to what you can say in public,” he said. “The reality of those threats and the strength of the underworld influences who control unlawful betting abroad is shown by the supporting evidence in the bundle of documents, including materials from the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit of the ICC.”

ICC reveals spineless greed on issue of Test play-offs

Gideon Haigh, in  the Weekend Australian, 29-30 October 2011 with different title… Gideon Haigh is one of Australia’s best sports writers and has expertise in financial analysis as well. He has now joined the Weekend Australian’s columns and must be listened to avidly. Web Editor.

HYPOCRISY, the saying goes, is the homage that vice pays to virtue. In cricket, it is the homage administrators pay to Test matches. Time and again, administrators assure us of their continued regard for Test cricket as the game’s ultimate form. Then they pull sneaky little manoeuvres like winnowing Australia’s planned three-Test series against South Africa away to two, and England’s promised five-Test series against South Africa next year to three.

Their recent decision to welch on playoffs for the World Test Championship is perhaps their most destructive move yet. Destructive and also instructive: because it demonstrates how far the game’s welfare now falls behind self-interest and short-term financial expediency as a governance priority.

At their July annual meeting inHong Kong, the executive board of the International Cricket Council, on which Cricket Australia’s representative was its chairman Jack Clarke, agreed to advance plans for playoffs to the World Test Championship: semi-finals and a final among the top four ranked countries. It was welcomed as a much-needed innovation: a chance to contextualise the game’s most skilful and historic format, and enrich it with a finale worth the name.