Where is the consistency?

de Villiers, who was batting on 46, began his walk back to the pavilion after having a word with the umpires.

Erm, whatever happened to the umpire's decision being final? And whatever happened to players accepting the umpires word without murmur?

Does dissent mean different things to different people ? In different contexts?

And if not, what is the ICC going to do about this?

Updates:-

International Cricket Council match referee Jeff Crowe visited the Indian dressing room minutes before the game against Australia at the Adelaide Oval on Sunday.

He wasn’t there to get autographs but to discuss couple of issues with team’s assistant coach Lalchand Rajput.

“Crowe isn’t happy with the time Indian batsmen were taking to get on the field after a wicket fell so he has asked us to make sure that the batsmen crossed each other on the field.” The Australians, it’s believed, had protested with the match referee and he was taking up the issue with the Indians.

Rajput politely reminded Crowe that the Australians too were taking their time and it would be in interest of both teams if they too showed some urgency.

Meanwhile, the Indians want the on field umpires to do away with their white hats when they’re facing Lasith Malinga.

Rajput requested Crowe during the same discussion but the match referee wasn’t willing to listen.

“The batsmen can’t pick the ball coming out from Lasith Malinga’s hand as it comes over the umpire’s hat. We requested him to ask the umpires to wear something of different colour but he says he’s not in a position to do it. Which is a bit strange considering he’s the match referee,” said Rajput.

Malinga, the games only slinger, has befuddled many batsmen with his odd bowling action.
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Jeff Crowe’s seems to have got into a habit of visiting the Indian team’s dressing room. The International Cricket Council’s match referee dropped in during the Australian innings at the Sydney Cricket Ground and asked coach-in-charge Lalchand Rajput to send another pair of wicketkeeping gloves for M S Dhoni.

Dhoni had pulled off a stunning one-handed catch from an Adam Gilchrist inside edge diving to his right and that is when the Australians and the match referee sighted the curved webbings between the thumb and the index finger of Dhoni’s gloves which the match referee perceived is contrary to what Law 40.2 of the game states.

Once Crowe threw the book on the Indians, substitute Praveen Kumar walked out with another pair of gloves with flatter webbing.
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then the equally hot-headed Andrew Symonds was at the centre of a petty outburst.

The batsman, who was criticised by Justice John Hansen for his attitude to the game in the Harbhajan racial abuse hearing, looked to give Ishant Sharma a verbal spray after he was bowled.

The teenager responded verbally and then pointed to the dressing room, which is a breach of the ICC code of conduct.

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Ishant Sharma has been summoned by Match Referee Jeff Crowe for a disciplinary hearing on Monday morning after a face-off with Australian allrounder Andrew Symonds.

Ishant had a heated exchange with Symonds and pointed fingers towards the pavilion after dismissing the Australian allrounder in their tri-series match on Sunday.

Ishant has been charged under Clause 1.6 of the ICC Code of Conduct and if found guilty could be reprimanded or fined up to 50 per cent of his match fee, an ICC spokesman said.

The hearing will be held at the team hotel.

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And now, there are reports on TV that Ishant Sharma has been fined 15% of his match fees.
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Heh!

And do the Australians have to pay tax to the Indian authorities. As Indian cricketers had to recently? All foreign cricketers would be taxed at a flat rate of 10% a surcharge of 3% (10.3%) on their income. They are governed under section 115BBA of the IT Act. Therefore Andrew Symonds, for instance, would take home an amount of $1.21m.
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The Indian Premier League has been putting a lot of traditionalists' noses out of joint. Money is being slung around at a rate unseen since Kerry Packer paid the original World Series cricketers a small fortune to wear those ill-fitting pyjamas. But as the first top-grade cricket competition to remove the increasingly thorny issues of nationality and race from the occasion, the IPL should be welcomed. As with WSC, an avaricious hunt for television dollars may end up benefiting the game immeasurably.

Cricket likes to view itself as being above such tawdry, déclassé concerns as money, of course. Its heritage, supposedly, is of a game played by gentlemen whose only material concern is whether their cups of Earl Grey tea are accompanied by cucumber sandwiches. But we saw in the aftermath of the Sydney Test where the Indian team put enormous pressure on the game's judicial processes to ransom by threatening to return home, those days are finished.

Cricket is the only team sport I can think of where the top players primarily compete at international level. In the likes of football, basketball and baseball, club teams are the day-to-day focus, with occasional breaks for World Cups and other representative contests. But if you're lucky enough to make a Test XI, you'll play pretty much all of your cricket for your country, taking breaks to play for your old club or state team only once in a blue moon. So the contests that matter most are between nations, and given the genuine ethnic diversity of cricket, and the mixed blessings of British colonial heritage, that's a recipe for tensions. Darrell Hair's story shows how easily perceptions of racism can explode in cricket nowadays - it's often forgotten that in the infamous abandoned England-Pakistan Test, the other umpire was West Indian.

And the problem was all too evident in the furious reaction by India to Australia's allegations of racism. The level of anger surely had its antecedents in the days of the Raj, which left Indians with the entirely correct perception that when it comes to racism, they were more sinned against than sinning. And it was not a huge surprise that Australia's holier-than-thou attitude caused so much irritation when it is the major exponent of sledging - sorry, "mental disintegration" in the world game.

But if all goes well, the IPL will deliver, for the first time, cricket that is mercifully free of the lingering resentments created by colonialism. Instead, superstars from different countries will play alongside each other - and harmoniously so, we can only hope. The closest analogy is the European Champions League, a hugely wealthy competition featuring most of the world's best clubs and players. All major European football teams now field teams whose players come from all over the world, and the London club Arsenal regularly fields teams with no English players whatsoever. This leads to criticism from some quarters, but the resulting quality on the field cannot be argued with. If cricket became more of a club-based competition, genuine fans of the game might finally be able to enjoy high-level contests free from the uncomfortable taint of racism and nationalism, and free from the suspicion and resentment that seems to so easily come to head in the modern game.

We've occasionally seen this at club level already, when overseas stars have come to play in first class teams. Warney's exploits in Hampshire are legend, both on and off the field, and Imran Khan played for NSW in 1984/5. But imagine if this was commonplace, and the NSW Blues were full of international stars, and regularly played teams from other countries, each with their own assortment of players from around the world. Australian fans would get a chance to have brilliant players like Sachin Tendulkar playing for their team, rather than always against them. You'd occasionally regroup as nations to play World Cups and Tests, sure, but most cricket would be genuinely free from the baggage of nationality and race. Since Test cricket audiences are dying in much of the world, the longer form of the game could use the excitement of club competition between stars, and this would also solve the huge imbalance of skill between countries like Australia and Zimbabwe. Plus, if cricket became primarily club-based, we'd see a lot less of the Barmy Army, and this alone would make it worth it.

The IPL hasn't even started, and already we've seen the best repudiation of the Andrew Symonds race saga you could hope for. We will probably never know whether Harbhajan actually called him a monkey, or some other unsavoury term in Punjabi. But we do know that the Indian cricket community think he's worth $1.4 million, showing him the respect that ought to be commanded by such an exciting player.

The sheer scale of demographics and an economic boom all point to one thing: the future of cricket lies primarily in India. And the IPL is just an early stage in this. There's potential for conflict with the existing international setup, and scheduling will be an ongoing challenge. But if the BCCI can help to heal cricket by making customary adversaries into teammates, and produce a competition free of the lingering racial tensions that have so harmed the game recently, we should all be thankful.

Did Jaipur know?

Due to my county commitments at Somerset I am unavailable to play in this first year, but I, like everyone else, will be fascinated to see just how big an impact this tournament has.

And, if they did, how many more such "announcements" should we expect from players on the lower end of the IPL food chain?
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David Hussey, the Victoria batsman, may have been purchased for US$625,000 by the Kolkata franchise in the Indian Premier League's auction, but his county side Nottinghamshire have insisted that he is contracted to play for them this season.
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Hello????

Whats with this

The IPL

and why I could care less for the Mumbai franchise.

The Mumbai Ranji Trophy team, culled from players in the Mumbai-Navi Mumbai region, are the true representatives of my fair city.

They are home bred and they have paid their dues in the various age group/city wide competitions before they were eligible for the Mumbai cap.

Unlike other Ranji teams, we dont "import" established Ranji players. Instead, we have done enough and more in sending our finest ( as players and coaches) and enhancing the quality of the other teams in the Ranji Trophy.

Mumbai players understand the city's cricketing culture and they are aware of the city's cricketing history and our varied contributions to Indian cricket.

It is a proud team and a prouder tradition.

What does the IPL have?

Homeboys like Wasim Jaffer and Zaheer Khan will be playing for Bangalore.Rohit Sharma plays for Hyderabad.Ramesh Powar will show up for Mohali while Agarkar will fly Kolkata's flag.(Mercifully, no Mumbaikar is playing for the Delhi team - the sacrilege!)

And in the meanwhile, as a proud Mumbaikar, I am expected to root for Loots Bosman and Harbhajan Singh and Dilhara Fernando!

Even the ICL, with the limited vision of a TV conglomerate, has not been this arrogant.

So, good luck IPL Mumbai (or whatever else they call you).

Good luck trying to shove that team of yours down my throat when you don't represent me or my city. And good luck trying to hawk your merchandise and your TV time to me - I ain't buying!

PS:- Expanding on the thought further
1. There is no concept of free agency in the IPL ( atleast there is no mention of it in the literature I have read thus far)
2. The players cannot make the call on taking a lower salary for staying with the team of their choice. The auction was about the player going to the highest bidder. As regards selections for the rest of the spots, what are the terms of selection for players outside of the catchment areas?
3. Is there a League minimum that is guaranteed to every player, irrespective of team?
4. Trades can be initiated only by the franchise owners after a period of 2 years. What about player initiated trades?
5. Is there going to be a farm system in place to supplement the IPL resource pool? If not, how much money will be diverted by the franchise to the teams in the city/catchment areas for player development?

Go the Huss!

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