Cricket has been hitting new lows in the last six months and the latest of these simmering episodes of rabid power struggles was seen in the unceremonious sacking of the ICC CEO Mr. Malcolm Speed just before the end of his tenure under the pretext of a paid holiday. Speed has been credited in revamping the functioning of the Australian board and for his actions during his tenure in handling the many controversies that erupted as the chief executive for the ICC. There has been endless coverage on Speed being the efficient hero battling with the big bad asian boards. This blogger here fails to tag along entirely and looks to genuinely address the events unfolded during his tenure.

When the ugly match fixing scandal broke out, some of the asian boards addressed the logical route to banning the players involved for life. Incredibly, within a short time, the likes of Mark Waugh and Shane Warne being involved surfaced but their board chose not to go public about it and tried to hide this and succeeded for a while. Later, it was credited to Speed’s efficiency to have made the players come clean and for bringing it out to the public domain with his criticism of the ACB being inappropriate in their actions of covering this episode up.

However, the cold reality was that the media was hot on their trails, with several courageous journalists involved overtime in investigative journalism to catch this hot potato and Speed had to make these decisions as the heat was too much and too dangerous to handle. And Speed did not at all give a fitting sentence to these erring cricketers and let them off lightly. Ironically, these players are in the hall of fame for their country and the accused counterparts involved with the asian boards, some true cricketing greats have been treated very harshly and perhaps even rightly so.

The extents of power mongering and perennial struggles among the cricketing boards have reached alarming proportions. For one set, it is perhaps the feeling that the game originated from them and there is a genuine uncomfortable thought of sharing it with the rest of the world and most definitely infuriating and worrying to share powers to control it to the non-originating nations. As a fan of the sport, watching the events unfolded in the last 10 years, there is no doubt in my mind that this has been the conflict ruling over cricket. When the state of finances were in doldrums, it took the Asian board to revive it to healthy levels and the originating boards felt and still feel uncomfortable in the shift in powers that come along with the spur in the interest of the game in those regions.

During his tenure, he has failed to acknowledge or perhaps may have even contributed like a good lawyer that he is, in exploiting the loopholes in the principles of the game, in using match officials to do the boards dirty work, to keep in check or egoistically get even with the other emerging powerful boards. Having a look at some of the on-field controversies during his tenure that threatened the game with explosive egoistic rallies of power struggles and the consistency in which these episodes have regularly occurred specifically against some of the asian teams. There are two types of crooks operating in this cricketing world… the one which is not very educated, sophisticated, doesn’t understand the complete nuances of the game, a crook like the Dalmiyas and some of the asian cricketing board officials. And then you have the sophisticated, highly educated, media charming board officials from the originating countries, who due to their education and understanding of the nuances of the game exploit it more cleverly… but then they are still crooks!

In the era of not ‘a lazy afternoon day cricket’ but full fledged professional sports machinery, the age-old principle of the game of “You have to accept the decision of a match official. He may be wrong but it has to be accepted and most definitely not questioned”, has been too neat and convenient loophole for dirty board officials to exploit in nexus of willing ground level officials in returns for perks. After all this is fool proof loophole and can be bounced away without any legal enquiries being undertaken. After all, has it been just mere coincidence that erring officials have strongly been backed in spite of some of the decisions being plain shocking and atrocious, without even a system in place to make an independent enquiry into those events. The fact that there has been no attempt to include or execute these so called farce body called ‘anti-corruption’ on officials clearly gives me a picture of this new nexus.
A quick timeline here:

6 Indian players charged for excessive appealing… all right. Sehwag banned for putting his hands on his hips and looking skywards while the rest of the world wonders if Glen Mcgrath would have played even 20 tests, if the yardsticks were the same. Speed backed his official and went on a head butt with the board. No enquiry into the incident behind the official’s bizarre ruling… however he was quietly sacked after a few tests.

The famous Darrell Hair episode with Muthiah Muralidharan where it is well documented where his support was.

Darell Hair again with the Pakistan-England ball tampering fiasco. However, this time, with the evidences of the previous incident with the Sri Lankan team, the asian boards united and arm-twisted strongly for an independent enquiry. And what a surprise, the independent enquiry came hard on Hair, which perhaps Speed did not expect. What resulted next was the beans almost spilling with a letter of ‘blackmail’ from Hair and Speed uncharacteristically displaying the letter to the media. The subsequent flip-flops between Hair and Speed clearly showed that there is more than what meets the eye and the word cover-up and unexpected reactions were pretty obvious.

Hair never apologized for his mistake nor acknowledged but Speed reinstated him into the elite panel, which is very interesting.

The bucknor incident… over 14 bad decisions mostly towards a single team. Those who watched the dismissal of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, added with the context of all the earlier controversial dismissals would know once again that there was more than what met the eye. On Speed, there were more typical brave words but Bucknor was just dropped and re-instated for another series. The logic on why an independent enquiry did not be commissioned for that official in the match was perhaps from the fallout of loosing the earlier one for Hair. And it was very convenient for him to ride along the popular wave of the Indian board money-power talk.

On the final one about the Zimbabwe funds misappropriation controversy, it is interesting for a parting shot to be delivered right at the end of his tenure. The fact that the biggest criticism on Speed has been on him not doing enough for resolving the cricketing issues with Zimbabwe. And behold he gets interested in Zimbabwe at the end, where he can create some turmoil and leave happily. Of course the other shady boards threw in their anchors… they are all crooks after all.

As for Speed, people will write endlessly on how well an administrator he was and how he took on the might of the Indian board head on. Yet for me, his tenure had so many controversies all of which he deliberately choose to not acknowledge or address the areas causing the turmoil, that one big loophole. As a lawyer, you have done great but as a cricket management official, you have just towed the age old dirty political line. The damage you have done to world cricket in not addressing the interests and concerns of the player but ironically gone full steam in protecting the interest of officials has opened my view on the political games which countries play. Your tenure did not bring in any great improvements in cricket but certainly have damaged the relationship between member countries and most importantly, the players the real bread-winners and the fans of this multi-billion dollar sports enterprise called cricket.

Thank you for your contribution to the rift in the cricketing world. Good Luck!