Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard's statement that no one country should dominate the International Cricket Council (ICC) may have some merit. But he needs to be reminded that for more than half a century the ICC was dominated by England and Australia.
There were a number of important cricketing issues during that period which were swept under the carpet by these two countries and only what suited them was implemented.
When the spinners from the sub-continent, especially India, were making the English and Australian batsmen dance with a leg-side close-in field, the ICC introduced the rule in 1974 of not more than two fielders behind the popping crease. It did affect the performance of Indian spinners to a considerable extent.
During the time when Jagmohan Dalmiya was president of the ICC, India did bulldoze a few issues to its advantage. In fact, in the list of breach of code of conduct, Indians are more in the number and continue to be.
The latest decision of the BCCI not to agree to have the Umpires Decision Review System (UDRS) against the Sri Lankans in the ensuing series proves that the BCCI is toeing the line of thinking of the Indian cricketers.
When other Test playing nations have no objection to UDRS, why should BCCI object to it? By not adhering to uniform policies, India isn't projecting its image properly.
Balancing act
It's now the job of ICC President Sharad Pawar to do the balancing act.
He is a very experienced and shrewd politician and has learnt the art of politics in cricket administration.
From the day he was voted to power as president of the Mumbai Cricket Association he has allowed former cricketers, through the Cricket Improvement Committee of the association, to take cricketing decisions.
Though in a lighter vein, he had said that he had no connection with the game apart from getting married to daughter of former India leg-spinner Sadashiv Shinde, who toured England in 1946, he acted swiftly to make a mark in Indian cricket politics.
As ICC president, Pawar will have to do away with some of the weird policies and must ensure accountability from the countries getting a sizable chunk of development subsidy without showing enough progress.
Zimbabwe is also a burning issue that needs to be sorted out. His top priority, however, will be to make Test cricket interesting for it to survive.
Without tinkering with Test cricket for over a century, it survived. But, whether day-night cricket is the correct solution will have to be experimented in different weather conditions in all the Test-playing nations. The BCCI did play one Ranji Trophy day-night final in 1997 at Gwalior, and the experiment failed.
Perhaps, the bifurcation of 450 overs in a Test match — 125 overs each in the first innings and 100 overs each in the second innings — with the addition of a few power plays may make Test cricket interesting. Pawar is very keen to spread the game to non-cricketing countries. One hopes he succeeds in balancing the schedule of the three formats of the game and IPL.
