Bowlers need care, as does our game, which suffered some pretty grievous wounds at the ICC meeting. The funny thing is that every country got what it wanted and the game suffered. Zimbabwe got the best deal. They wanted money, they got it; they didn’t want cricket, now they don’t need to provide it. And England got what they wanted; the money that will flow in from organizing the next world T20 and a political victory by denying Zimbabwean players a world stage. It has very dangerous implications. Can teams be paid off in return for a denial of permission to play cricket? So if, for example Pakistan doesn’t want Australia to participate in the Champions Trophy, can they pay them off and ask them not to come? Where does it stop? Either Zimbabwe is in the ICC or it isn’t. A staging association cannot have discretion over who it invites and who it doesn’t to a world event.

Worse still is the decision to change the result of the Oval Test between England and Pakistan. Little that I have seen in world cricket over the years staggers me as much as this. Maybe the umpire made a mistake but hang on, a team refused to play cricket. That is inadmissible. We can’t have a situation where a team sits in a dressing room because it doesn’t like what is happening in the middle. And we certainly can’t have a situation where it is rewarded by having a result changed. So what is next? If India had sat in the dressing room in Sydney protesting about the umpiring, would the match have been labelled a draw? Would the series have been level 1-1? Couldn’t England have protested when Sreesanth was clearly out lbw just before the rain came down at Lords and denied them a win? That series should have been 1-1 then?

... contd.