ICC must end this farce

If Botha, an off-spinner, could be suspended for suspect action, then Akhtar deserves a life ban.

Richie Benaud once said, cricket is a simple game, keep it simple. Having been a party to the decision to ban Ian Meckiff (who played under Benaud) when there were no human movement experts, he must be wondering what all this fuss is about Shoaib Akhtar's action. Ban him, he would say.

After my last column, I followed it up with the ICC's General Manager, Cricket, David Richardson, who was the vice-captain of South Africa, Prof. Bruce Elliott, an expert on human movement, and S. Venkataraghavan. These individuals and others as knowledgeable have already expressed their opinions on Akhtar's bowling action, while Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee, Sunil Gavaskar, has been quoted as saying that the Pakistani fast bowler's case could be reopened.

What Elliott said about Akhtar's action makes sense, but why didn't he say that earlier? But then, he may have said it and the ICC may have swept it under the carpet — one never knows. Talking about the hyper-extension of Akhtar's elbow, Elliott said it does assist the bowler. Now this is interesting. As per the amended rule of permitting 15-degrees flexion, additional degrees of hyper-extension are not considered.

If, according to Elliott, Akhtar is getting the advantage in terms of speed, the ICC Cricket Committee or the Bowling Review Group ought to put an end to this farce. Again one feels the need to ask: Is the ICC Cricket Committee waiting for a batsman to get killed?

The ICC officially stated that when Akhtar was reported for suspect action, the then President of the ICC, Jagmohan Dalmiya, overruled it as he felt that umpires had found his action suspect when he was bowling a bouncer. And since a bouncer is a no-ball in one-dayers, he was allowed to play. But is he not bowling bouncers and beamers in Tests?

Venkataraghavan, who rarely expresses his views publicly, categorically said he did report Brett Lee and Akhtar but nothing happened. One school of thought is keen to know why Venkat and his colleagues, who have reported bowlers for suspect action, have not called the bowlers on the field for throwing? One expects Gavaskar to act like a Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee. If Botha, an off-spinner, could be suspended for suspect action, then Akhtar deserves a life ban.

The decision of the BCCI's Umpires Committee to invite former cricketers to get into umpiring will be appreciated by cricketers who are under 45 years of age. Some years ago, the BCCI did invite former retired cricketers but they were hardly given any matches. Besides, some of them felt that Rs. 2000 per match day was too little. The new committee has raised the payment to Rs. 5000 and the umpires' fraternity should be pleased.

The point is whether the increase in pay will enhance the standard of umpiring. Unfortunately, the assessment system of umpires has too many loopholes. Not that we don't have competent umpires in India, but posting incompetent umpires for important matches sends wrong signals — that you need to belong to a particular group to get postings. Hopefully the new regime will head in the right direction by adopting Cricket Australia's umpire module.

For more than 530 matches played in a season, we have an all-India panel of 53 umpires of which 11 are former first class players. The Ranji panel of 52 umpires includes five former first class players. The umpires from the Ranji panel are mainly appointed for the junior matches. With the BCCI announcing the date for the umpires' examination and signing of contracts for retainership, things should improve.

The BCCI must back the umpires when they call the bowlers for chucking. There are quite a few bowlers with suspect action even in junior cricket and they keep playing as no action is taken by the BCCI. Why not have a Bowling Review Group on the lines of the ICC if we expect our umpires to do a good job?

Talking to the umpires in India, one gets the impression that they are not inclined to invite controversy as it might jeopardise their chances of getting more postings. This is a valid point. Let the committee assessing the umpires be made up of neutral umpires. If we can get a foreigner to coach the Indian team and also get the support staff from abroad, why not have three neutral (i.e. international) umpires in the Umpires' Assessment Panel?

Inefficient umpiring is one of the main reasons for the poor standard of Indian cricket. At times, the interpretation of the laws of the game is so inconsistent that one wonders how such umpires get postings in the first place. No wonder then, that shrewd cricketers take full advantage of incompetent umpiring.

Captains and coaches of teams have been complaining for the past five years that veteran UP Ranji player Gyanendra Pandey has consistently managed to avoid fielding, and in the finals of the Ranji Trophy this year his substitute took a brilliant catch to dismiss Laxmiratan Shukla when Bengal needed 14 runs for the vital first innings lead. That cost Bengal the Ranji Trophy.

Penalising players for misbehaviour is not a permanent solution to problems. Get rid of incompetent umpires; have a proper assessment system, only then will we get to watch good quality cricket in India.