karlpejera: The Guardian world cricket forum

Huwebes, Pebrero 2, 2012

The Guardian world cricket forum | Andy Bull

Welcome to the latest instalment of our weekly blog offering a forum for cricket-loving folk around the world

Ouch. Lord Woolf's independent review of the International Cricket Council landed with a thump on desks in Dubai this week. And for the mandarins who run the game, it makes painful reading: "Currently the ICC reacts as though it is primarily a members' club; its interest in enhancing the global development of the game is secondary," reads one of the key lines. "In today's environment this is not an acceptable situation. Cricket is a global game and there is a need for global governance. If the ICC is prevented from developing, promoting and protecting world cricket, public opinion will be increasingly critical of the members of the ICC board who are responsible for this." Anyone would think Woolf had been sounding out the commenters underneath the cricket articles on the guardian's pages. You can read a full copy of the report here.

"It is unacceptable," Woolf continues, "for members to be half-hearted in their support of the ICC; they must realise that the good of global cricket must come first. If this is ignored, the pressure for change that will be created will either make change inevitable, or destroy the support for the game on which its success depends."

Among his 65 recommendations, Woolf calls for a restructuring of the ICC's executive board to make it more independent and to reduce the numerical strength and weight of influence of the full members. Woolf argues that ICC directors should not concurrently hold any leadership post with their home boards, thereby avoiding inevitable conflicts of interest.

He also calls for greater opportunities for non-Test playing countries to compete against the top nations and for them to have more say in the running of the game. He recommends that the ICC does away with the present membership system and just have two clear membership categories: the full members and associates. He suggests Test status should not be a necessary requirement for full membership. He also suggests that the ICC adopts the principle of one board member, one vote.

Eminently sensible suggestions all, but we will have to wait and see whether or not Woolf's proposals are put into effect when the ICC board gets together to discuss them in April. An old line about turkeys, voting and Christmas comes to mind. If anyone needs a reminder of just how decrepit some of the administrative practice is, they can find it in the KPMG report into ticketing in the last World Cup, which was also released this week.

The "major areas for improvement by ICC/Host" as summarised in that document are: "1) to make sufficient tickets available to the public; 2) to have central control and management of tickets; 3) for their to be better record keeping." These are elementary and fundamental details, you would think, so it is a little disturbing that the ICC had to hire KPMG to tell them as much.

Battle of wounded pride

Away from the boardrooms and out on the field, this week is going to provide a measure of whether or not England's batsmen are capable of mastering Pakistan's bowlers.

As dead rubbers go this is going to be an interesting one: England have a lot of wounded pride to heal, and for Pakistan it will be a test of just how ruthless and relentless a side they have become underneath Misbah's leaership. In Australia, the CB series featuring the home nation, India and Sri Lanka starts on Sunday, while New Zealand also begin their ODI series against Zimbabwe on Friday.

IPL cattle market

This Saturday cricket fans can also enjoy the cruel and unusual pleasures of the Indian Premier League auction, in which cricketers delight in being bought like cattle at market.

Some 144 players are in the catalogue. At current exchange rates ? according to figures from the recent auction for the inaugural Bangladeshi Premier League ? one Shahid Afridi is currently worth 28 Darren Stevenses, while a single Chris Gayle is equivalent to six Peter Tregos.

Andy Bull