Yorked!

Raising a piquant situation for BCCI, it has come to light that master batsman Sachin Tendulkar has played alongside 'rebel' player Dinesh Mongia for Lashings World XI in two matches in England last month.
Tendulkar and Mongia had opened the innings for Lashings' XI against St Bede's School Headmasters XI at the school ground in Essex on June 27. While Tendulkar sizzled with an 84-ball knock of 98, Mongia hit 72 off 41 balls, according to the club website.

Tendulkar had batted at number two and the left-handed India discard Mongia at number three on June 24 for the same side, making 32 and 66 respectively against Eastbourne College XI at the latter's ground.

Mongia has aligned with the rebel Indian Cricket League.

Interestingly, Mumbai left-arm spinner Nilesh Kulkarni was also part of the Lashings' squad which also contained New Zealand's ICL rebel Chris Harris.

The Cricket Board has stopped Piyush Chawla and VVS Laxman from signing up to play for English counties due to the presence of ICL rebels in their ranks.

The BCCI has maintained right through that it would have no truck with ICL and also banned players who have taken part in the Essel Group-bankrolled rival league that took off much before the Board's own and highly successful Indian Premier League. PTI

Huh?

Test discard Faisal Iqbal could be handed a ban or a hefty fine if the Pakistan Cricket Board decides to take disciplinary action against him for appearing in a Twenty20 tournament in Florida featuring players from the rebel Indian Cricket League.

Will it follow that the BCCI suspends Md. Azharuddin's pension since he partook in the tournament also?

And will the BCCI please issue show cause notices to messers Sharad Pawar, Inderjit Bindra, Ratnakar Shetty, Dilip Vengsarkar and other BCCI office bearers for maintaining contact with him?

Addendum :- Since Azharuddin is not on the BCCI payroll, the BCCI has no locus standi on his actions. Ditto the PCB.

Just one question

With all the hoo-haa about Zimbabwe doing the rounds, I have one question to ask

• Hong Kong is an Associate member of the ICC
• China is an affiliated member
• Haroon Lorgat announced that ICC will pump in USD 300 million from next year for the development of cricket in Associate and Affiliate Members in a massive investment aimed at strengthening the game around the globe.
• Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Friday which would have imposed an arms embargo against Zimbabwe and financial and travel sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and other key leaders of the country's ruling party.

My question is - is the ICC going to block the monies due to China and Hong Kong because of China's veto?

Mischief

8 letters that could stand in for CricInfo!

How else would one describe this report and more specifically, this line

The Indian board sees "no harm" in Pakistan hosting the tournament in September, Niranjan Shah, the BCCI secretary, said on Wednesday.

Could someone from CricInfo's editorial board explain the quote no harm unquote or does journalistic license ( like the poetic one) allow Cricinfo "staff" to get away with murder?

More gems from the "Cricinfo staff" here, here, here and here.

PS:- Here is what the BCCI President elect ( and one of the VP's in the BCCI set up) Shashank Manohar had to say

"I don't want to speculate anything. Our view will be expressed only after hearing the voice of the other nations", he said.

Surely the BCCI President elect's thoughts are more reflective of the BCCI's stand than the Secretary's ( and never mind everything else Mr Shah had to say( "Our Indian team had taken part in the Asia Cup without any incident. Besides, the report of the ICC's security consultants, which was presented during the briefing in Dubai (on Sunday) was positive. So the BCCI sees no harm in Pakistan hosting the tournament."), however reasonable it was), no? Or is the desperation to get more eyeballs driving Cricinfo to manufacture headlines?

On Technology - 2

Dug up an old article from CricInfo

Steve Bucknor, a member of the ICC's elite panel of umpires, has complained that television production companies are misusing technology to make umpires look bad and key players look good.

Bucknor has revealed he has encountered instances of TV personnel maneuvering images to influence the flow and outcome of matches. "It has been known to happen where the technology has been used to make umpires look bad," he told reporters on Friday. "Mats [the line graphic used to adjudge lbw decisions] have been moved, balls have disappeared, ball hitting the bat and only coming up into the fielder's hands, but between the bat and the hand, no ball is found and you are told, 'Sorry, we don't have that clip, we can't show it'.

Bucknor, who has stood in a world record 111 Tests and four World Cup finals, as well as officiated 139 one-day internationals, noted he was speaking from personal experience. "It has happened; I've been in a game when it has happened," he said. "Sometimes nothing is shown because the batsman was a key batsman and getting out at that stage would have made life very difficult for that team. It all depends on who is operating the technology. I've been told that this ball is the one with which the batsman got out, but the one that is being shown is not the same one he got out with. It has been known to happen. When these things are happening, it makes life extremely difficult for the umpires. Who do you trust from there on you don't know."

Although he admits that there is a place for technology in the game and would like to see "a little bit more", Bucknor said the misuse of the technology is eroding the trust between umpires and players. "In the beginning of my career, umpires were trusted. When umpires said not out, the man was trusted, so they would say he is a good umpire and nobody questioned him. Today, the technology shows up his mistakes, and makes life a little bit difficult for umpires, especially when it has been known to happen that technology has been used to make umpires look bad."

and here is the ICC response

"Umpires are always defensive about their own decisions," said Dave Richardson, the ICC's general manager - cricket, before insisting that technology was there to help, not hinder officials, by sparing them from the intense scrutiny that surrounds even the most marginal of bad calls.

"I often point to him [Bucknor] as a very good example of why we need to give technology a go," said Richardson. "He's done particularly well this year. After not a great year last year, he's averaging around 96% of his decisions being correct, and yet he's made one or two decisions which have come in for terrible criticism from the media and from fans writing in to us."

Richardson's views were backed by Steve Norris, head of production at Ten Sports. "I am very surprised to know what Bucknor has said," Norris told PTI. "I have been in this field for 20 years and I have never come across such a thing. It just doesn't happen. There might have been technical mistakes but that is absolutely human error which batsmen, bowlers and everyone does."

Brian Murgatroyd, the ICC's media and communications manager, said extending the use of technology was an issue which needed to be discussed and debated from all perspectives. "From that point of view, I guess Steve has contributed to the debate," he said. Asked to comment on Bucknor's remark that production crews often failed to provide crucial frames, Norris said "it is a television thing. Normally there are 25 frames per second. What Bucknor is talking about we call 'between frames'."

"People must remember that things like Hawk-Eye, Strike Zone [the imaginary mat projected stump to stump for leg before decisions] were never designed for umpires," said Norris. "These are for viewers' appreciation ... The Hawk-Eye is 90 percent accurate, that is what they [the creators of the technology] claim.

Here is what I had to say about the use of technology on the field of play.

For all the talk of the three referrals and how it did not fly in England but is now de jure, the fundamental question remains unanswered - how does the ICC take away the bias that creeps in ( either inadvertently or maliciously) in cricketing broadcasts?

PS:- Related articles from CricInfo

"The more technology ICC uses, the more they hand over responsibility to the television producer. The position of the mat is the producer's responsibility and that can definitely be tampered with," said Harsha Bhogle, the Indian broadcaster. "Even coming to TV replays that the third umpire sees, suppose there is a 24-camera coverage, you might have 8 cameras dedicated to recording replays. The pictures you get depend on the skill of the cameramen and the skill of the editor in choosing the right replay to show, and finally the director taking a call to show it. If the director is either incompetent or biased, then that is a problem because he controls what the third umpire sees."

One broadcaster, speaking on the condition of anonymity, concurred with Bhogle and even added that, "there have been suspicions in the past that producers, especially from certain countries, have been a touch too patriotic, and have withheld replays that went against home teams." The problem will exist as long as the ICC use television companies as allies in the decision making process. Then there is the in-built economics of production itself: for the television producer, the primary aim is to produce the best quality broadcast at the lowest possible cost. This means that he would be reluctant to add a camera at midwicket, for example, if it did nothing to increase the quality of the viewing experience, even if it helped give the umpire a better view.

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The increasing move towards technology though needs to answer one other fundamental question. If an umpire's decision is challenged by a batsman, let's say for a slip catch, and the replay for whatever reason, is inconclusive, will the batsman win his appeal? Or will, in the absence of firm evidence to the contrary, the umpire's decision stand?

I believe we need to move ahead and use technology wherever possible but we need to be a little wary about outsourcing justice beyond a point.