BCCI - ICC on a collision course

The Board of Control for Cricket in India, the International Cricket Council and the World Anti-Doping Agency are on a collision course.

This is because the most powerful body in world cricket today, the BCCI is against the system promoted by WADA. They have no problem with the testing. The Indian players have raised concerns and said that the testing system is unreasonable.The Indian cricketers are the only international stars not to have signed documents with the deadline set by the ICC being August 1.Rightly so because there is a clause that says that they must tell their whereabouts every day for the next three months for an hour between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. to allow random out-of- competition testing

WADA has a rule that anyone missing three doping tests over 18 months faces a ban up to two years. The BCCI has made it clear that they have no problem with the testing but they do not agree to the style of testing. The BCCI stresses that they want cricket to be free of doping and they have no objection to players being tested during competitions.

The BCCI states: 'If at all WADA wants to test any Indian player they can inform the BCCI and we will produce the player within 24 hours for testing. But the clause for proving details of their whereabouts is unreasonable for these reasons. One, there is security cover for some players and it is not right to disclose their whereabouts in advance. Two, the privacy of a player cannot be invaded'

Now me thinks that the BCCI and the Indian players are correct in raising their concerns. How other sports bodies and sportsmen and women came to agree to this unreasonable WADA clause defies understanding.

The BCCI is contemplating on asking the ICC to break away from the World Anti-Doping Agency and form its own cricket-specific anti-doping code. The BCCI will propose this solution which they formulated after a series of discussions among senior Indian board officials at the ICC Executive Meeting in early October. Other national sports bodies must support this Indian move and tell WADA where they get off.

The ICC is determined to globalize the game and if the BCCI suggestion to break away from WADA goes through then cricket would not be a part of the Asian Games or the Olympics. But WADA has already made it clear that no exemption to the code will be granted as 571 sporting bodies across the world abide by these norms. The coming weeks will see a different ball game. The BCCI has the clout to get the ICC to genuflect before them and do their bidding. How the ICC will face the bowling of WADA and score for the BCCI will be interesting to watch. The ICC needs the BCCI.

The Jayawardena show

Mahela Jayawardena, the former Sri Lankan skipper, played the best knock of his one-day career to steer Sri Lanka to a record breaking win against Pakistan which also saw his team clinching the one day series winning three of the five games with two to be played in Colombo with the Lankans aiming for a clean sweep and Pakistan attempting to restore some lost prestige by winning the last two..

When The Pakistanis set Sri Lanka a mammoth 289 for victory, the consensus was that the Pakistanis were going to win this one and keep the series open. But they did not bargain for the never say die attitude of Jayawardena. He is a believer that a match is not won or lost till the final ball is bowled. When regular openerSanath Jayasuriya was unable to take the field owing to some illness, Jayawardena put his hand up and opted to open

When he agreed to open, he never thought of having to face such a daunting score for victory. But cometh the hour, cometh the man in Jayawardena who had his critics red in the face, the manner in which he moved into the Pakistan bowling and slaughtered it to all spots on the field and over it as well to bring Sri Lanka one, if not the greatest one day victories.

Jayawardena was an example when he gave up the national captaincy saying enough is enough. The man who did similarly was Sanath Jayasuriya who at naughty forty is still going strong and showing the youngsters how.

From the first ball Jayawardena got his timing and middling right and his majestic stroke play which he was famous for came naturally and he was a sight to behold as he played his trade mark shots - the drive, the cuts, the pulls and the shots over the boundary that had spectators on the ground and the millions watching it on TV splitting their hairs asking for more and asking the gods not to bring an end to this heaven made innings. If not for the injury he suffered more runs would have cascaded from his bat.

Together with Upul Tharanga 76 who was glad to play second fiddle to the master, they set the platform for this great victory putting on 203. Skipper KumarSangakkara took it from there and when this victory was thought impossible made it possible with some carefree strokes and did he not sport that winning smile when leaving the field to thunderous applause from the crowd.

My comments asking that the Dambulla wicket needs redoing because of its very slow nature that never allows batsmen and bowlers to revel, seems to have had some effect because the wicket that this game was played on suddenly got lively and allowed over 500 runs to be scored. Those are the wickets that this style of games require and we hope similar wickets will be seen at the R. Premadasa Stadium when the remaining two games and the Twenty20 is played under lights on Friday, Sunday and Wednesday.

It is a pity to see the Pakistanis who came here with so much hope and expectations take a beating in both forms of the game. One hoped that their success in the Twenty20 final in England would have galvanized them to continue their winning spree. But sadly that has not been so. It must be worrying to the Pakistan Cricket Board and to coach Intikhab Alam.

The cry now back home would be for captain Younus Khan and Intikhab Alam to be on the chopping blocks. Now that is an unreasonable call. What can the skipper and the coach do when the team is failing? Apparently something is very badly wrong with the squad. It is for the PCB to launch an inquiry once the team gets back and find out as to what is not letting the team jell and play to their ability.

Individually the team has immense talent. But it is inexplicable the manner in which they are performing. Men such as Shoaib Malik, Mohammed Younus, YounusKhan and Kamran Akmal are failing too often which is very queer. In the Test series it was surprising to see experienced men such as Abdur Razzaq and DaneshKaneira being left out. Kaneira in the final Test the way he bowled proved his detractors wrong. When the Pakistanis surrendered meekly in Galle and at the P.Sara. Oval, in a chat with my good friend and former off spinning allrounder Abu Fuard I mentioned that their style of losing was questionable. But now comes the news that questionable characters were seen hovering around the floors of the hotels that the Pakistani cricketers were staying. We are told a probe is on and we leave it at that.

Ashes series still open

Australia came out strongly in the second innings of the Third Ashes Test at Birmingham to draw the game and keep their hopes of retaining the Ashes alive, thanks to a fighting century by captain in waiting Michael Clarke, an unbeaten 103 and a solid knock of 96 from left hander Marcus North who were involved in 185 run stand for the 5th wicket.

The Aussie are still one down in the series and the next two, with the 4 th Test in progress at the time of writing, should be blockbusters if the teams play to their capabilities. Apparently the Aussies seem to be overawed by the presence of Andrew Flintoff. Flintoff seems to be having the knack of dishing out his best when up against arch rivals Australia, as he has shown in the Three Test so far played. Why the Aussies are running scared of Flintoff is inexplicable.

Unless the Aussies shed the Flintoff complex, they are bound to be at the losing end and it will be sad for them if they lose the Ashes, which they won so convincingly when they beat England under Flintoff five-nil in Australia in 2007.

Warne and Abeysinghe - the best

Former sheik of tweak Shane Warne seems to have settled down to being a TV cricket commentator in style. In fact he has outshone David Lloyd, Michael Atherton, Ian Botham, Nasser Hussein, David Gower and Michael Holding with his superb reading of the game, where the teams are going wrong and making suggestions which are very well though out and delivered with great aplomb.

Warne is also easy listening and STAR TV has chosen right in having Warne, because viewers are eagerly awaiting his arrival behind the mike during the Tests.

Another TV Commentator who is going great guns like Warne is Sri Lanka's own Roshan Abeysinghe. Abyesinghe seems to be having his detractors.