A 'new world order' in the ICC?

After days of citing the rule books in support of its match referee Mike Denness, the International Cricket Council, the game's governing body, is beginning to realise it has another contest on hands whose rules have not been written.

Over the past few days, the ICC has begun to see cricketing divisions settling along a divide between white and non-white countries and the developing and the developed world.

World cricket plunged into what seems to be a major crisis after the Indian and South African cricket boards defied the ICC in removing Denness as match referee. Denness was removed at India's insistence after he ruled Indian batting hero Sachin Tendulkar guilty of ball tampering.

Denness also penalised five other Indian players for various misdemeanours. India claimed that the decisions were biased.

Political colours are becoming visible as much as racial colours. So political a battle it is beginning to seem now that one commentator in London blamed it on the "right-wing" politics of the Indian government.

India is held together by three things: Kashmir, the nuclear tests and cricket, the commentator wrote in the Sunday Telegraph . Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had delivered victories on the first two. Now for cricket, the commentator said.

But the ICC is more worried about the greater political divide that can challenge its dominance. A letter from secretary of Board of Control for Cricket in India Niranjan Shah to ICC chief Malcolm Gray held out the stark warning that the three white Test-playing nations, England, Australia and New Zealand, may find themselves up against the rest. There are ten Test-playing nations.

Former England captain Mike Atherton brought that hidden debate into the open by warning the ICC on Sunday of the racial divide in the world of cricket.

"The ICC are already deeply divided along racial lines; Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe form a powerful and united clique within the whole," Atherton said in a Sunday newspaper.

"(Indian cricket board president Jagmohan) Dalmiya claims to have the backing of the West Indies, which would leave England, New Zealand and Australia out on a limb."

Dalmiya could be playing for a result when the member countries of the ICC meet in Colombo in March. The ICC could be looking at a 7-3 divide in favour of Dalmiya. The Australian-English team at Lord's at present is being seen as "the old, white colonial order imposing its wishes", Atherton warned.

In his letter to the ICC, Shah spoke of support from the West Indies, mentioned commitment of support from Pakistan and added, "Sri Lanka and Bangladesh always support us." India can also expect support from the Zimbabwe and South Africa cricket boards, he said.

India is being seen as a country whose money fortunes are bigger than its fortunes in cricket. India has won only one Test series abroad since 1986 but it is the biggest money spinner for world cricket through advertising, sponsorship and television rights.

Indian sponsorship is vital particularly to the World Cup due to be played next in South Africa in 2003. "You can't have a World Cup without Tendulkar and without Indian fans and sponsors," Manab Majumdar, BBC cricket commentator, told IANS . "Just a threat from India to withdraw can shake them up."

The ICC was put on a financially sound footing largely as a result of Dalmiya's efforts when he was chairman of ICC. Dalmiya's success in taking over the ICC was itself a first, and followed extensive and successful lobbying with the non-white cricketing nations. Dalmiya is seen now as moving further to build what a commentator called "a new world order".

Indo-Asian News Service

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