Pakistan lose the Champions Trophy & the Oval Test.... again!

The International Cricket Council has finally decided to move the postponed Champions Trophy out of Pakistan. A tournament that had already been postponed from September 2008 to October this year, was retained by Pakistan purely because of the BCCI backing to PCB. At that time (in Aug 2008), India & Pakistan were pretty close and both countries considered the other to be a stauch ally. Under pressure from BCCI, PCB & the other pro-BCCI boards, the rather powerless ICC merely postponed the Champions Trophy by a year hoping that the situation would change by end-2009. And change they did. The unfortunate terror attacks in Mumbai in Nov 2008 put the 2 countries at loggerheads. Public opinion against Pakistan led to India's tour of Pakistan being called off on the advise of the Indian Government. With the cancellation of that series, with the security situation in Pakistan not improving, with many internation teams still against touring Pakistan, and with the BCCI-PCB bloc breaking up, the ICC took the open option to move the tournament out of Pakistan. Though no alternate location has been announced, based on the alternate venues discussed last year, I would think that Sri Lanka and South Africa would be the likely alternatives. Given their history of raising questions over a visa for Peter Chingoka (Chairman, Zimbabwe Cricket), England & Australia are least likely venues for this tournament.

Pakistan have now lost the Oval 2006 test to England.... again! After having initially lost the match after umpires Darrell Hair & Billy Doctrove awarded the match to England, Pakistan got the result changed to a draw at the July 2008 ICC meeting.However, the custodians of the laws of cricket, the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), refused to acknowledge the change in result on the basis that the ICC did not have the authority (Law 21.10) to overrule the umpires' decision. Keeping in mind the stance of the MCC, the ICC have now decided to re-reverse result of this match to a forfeiture by Pakistan. This ping-pong how weak the ICC is, and how easily it is swayed by its member countries. The main "aim" of the ICC, it appears, is to simply avoid confrontation with anyone, nevermind the rationale of their decisions. In my opinion, the ICC should never have changed the decision of the umpires in the 1st place. Over-ruling the umpires' decision on the very result of the game opens such a pandora box that it is not beyond possibilities that teams could start asking for reversals of dismissals on the basis that the umpires were wrong. Don't get me wrong; I don't for 1 moment think that the umpires were correct in awarding the match to England. In his quest to exert his authority as the umpire, Mr. Hair conveniently forgot that as an umpire, his 1st action should be to ensure an environment where both teams can compete fairly. As the umpire, he was not the main event, merely a conduit to ensure that the main event carried on. So, though I don't agree with the umpires' decision, I firmly believe that the umpires' decision should be final. If batsmen are expected to take wrong decisions by umpires, if bowlers and fielders are expected to recognise that snicks might be missed by umpires, it goes without saying that a result determined by the umpires should be accepted by all and sundry. The initial decision by the ICC to reverse the original result was a political one... and I for one am glad that they have rectified that by now making a cricketing one!

Back to the playing field

The 1st international games of 2009 begin today. The somewhat traditional New Year's test at Sydney began today (03-Jan) a day later than usual - this is just the 6th time in the last 20 years that a SCG test did not begin on 02-Jan; and in 1995 it actually began on 01-Jan instead. In these 20 years, the SCG has seen 21 completed games (i.e. not including the one that started today) - Aus have won 12 of them, 9 (out of 11) since 2000 with just a single loss to England back in 2003. After last year's acrimonoues 2nd test against India with it's terrible umpiring decisions and the now infamous racism charges by Symonds against Bhajji. For perhaps the 1st time, the BCCI showed it's might in a full blown manner against CA and the ICC. BCCI's financial clout won the day eventually, with Bucknor removed from the 3rd test at Perth and CA dropping the racism charges on Bhajji. First time that world cricket probably saw money speaking lounder than the bat & ball.

Anyway, back to cricket... South Africa look to whitewash Australia in their own backyard and get going in their quest to be the new World #1. Australia have the 1st strike in this game by winning the toss and taking 1st strike on a Sydney pitch that usually wears down a tad over the 5 days. This time though, I don't think either team has the spinner to make use of the wearing pitch. Australia are really fighting for pride in this dead rubber; a team that this time last year was setting world records for the longest winning streak, is now fighting to avoid a new record of being whitewashed for the 1st time in a home series. But the going is tough for them with Lee and Symonds being forced out of the team with injuries. So much has been said about Johnson having to lead the Aussie bowling attack after such a short stint in the team, that I don't need to mention it again (wait, I just did, but what the hell... it was worth mentioning :P) South Africa are not without their injury woes - Prince remains injured and Smith is playing with a hurt elbow, but SA's batting depth coupled with Aus' bowling lack of depth should make it pretty tough for Aus in this game. Already Ponting has fallen for a duck, but Hayden is surviving and that should be good news for the Aussies.

In neighbouring New Zealand, rain continues to hamper cricket. After the 1st game was washed out, the 2nd game started on time only to be interrupted by rain in the 7th over. After drawing the test series 0-0 and the T20s 1-1, both teams should be looking for the ODI series to settle the scores between them. If the rain holds, this should an interesting series between rank 5 (New Zealand) and rank 8 (West Indies). Both teams have relatively young teams with some up & coming players to watch out for.

After the challenging fight that Bangladesh put up against Sri Lanka last week, the 2nd test starting today is unlikely to provide the same level of competition - especially with carrom-ball specialist Mendis after an injury layoff. The Mendis effect cannot be underestimated, esp after the terrific performance against the Indians in his debut series.

In other news -

• ICC have launched a ICC Cricket Hall of Fame yesterday and inducted 55 initial international players
• England appear to have a serious conflict between captain & coach; more development expected over the weekend
• ICC has officially acknowledged that day/night test cricket is the way to the future for test cricket