Robert Griffiths QC and Stephen Whale question the ICC's decision to change a win to a draw....
At its meeting in the first week of July 2008, the Executive Board of the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sport's world governing body, decided that the result of the August 2006 Oval Test Match between England and Pakistan should be altered from an England win to a draw. It had no power to do so under the Laws of Cricket, and the decision is a nullity. But it is deeply troubling that the ICC should take this unprecedented and dangerous step. It is historical revisionism of the worst kind.
The Oval Test Match
The events of the match in question may need little by way of reminder. It is the one during which, for the first time in Test history, the umpires awarded the match to a side (England) because in their opinion the other side (Pakistan) refused to play. This refusal went back to the umpires' award earlier in the match of five penalty runs to England because of their conclusion that Pakistan had unfairly changed the condition of the ball.
The Fallout
The ICC's Executive Board resolved in response that one of the umpires, Darrell Hair, should no longer officiate at Test matches. The other umpire, Billy Doctrove, escaped censure. Hair was cast out into the wilderness seemingly never to return. However, the Australian brought employment tribunal proceedings against the ICC. It transpired at the hearing in October 2007 that the proposal effectively to demote Hair was put together at an unrecorded meeting over lunch comprising the representatives of Pakistan (the complainant), New Zealand (anti-Hair) and Zimbabwe (say no more). The Board members all reconvened after lunch, whereupon the resolution was carried after a very brief and again unrecorded discussion before the members went off to get ready for a dinner. The tribunal proceedings came to a premature end when Hair agreed not to pursue his claim in return for reconsideration of his position at the next Board meeting. The prohibition on his officiating at Test matches was lifted at that next meeting, leading to Hair's successful return at two of the England v New Zealand Tests earlier this season. On 11 July 2008, Cricket Australia appointed Hair to its Umpire High Performance Panel designed to act as mentors to officials coming through its ranks.
The ICC'S July 2008 Decision
Why the decision of the Executive Board? It was plainly connected to the fraught negotiations and posturing over the issue of Zimbabwe, whose cricketing association has obvious links with the discredited Mugabe regime. Quite why the ICC cannot see that which is obvious, namely that Zimbabwe does not presently deserve to be an ICC full member, is a mystery. Or it is, if one does not appreciate the political and commercial considerations which, in the modern game, appear to override cricketing considerations and the time-honoured principles of the game. These principles have been emasculated so as to appease Zimbabwe and its allies and for the questionable purpose of ensuring that the ICC World Twenty20 comes to England next year.
The Role of Others
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) abstained from the vote at the Board meeting, claiming that it had no knowledge that Pakistan intended voting. If so, the ECB was naïve in the extreme. In any event, why did the ECB not vote against the proposal come what may? Giles Clarke, the ECB representative, is reported as having said that he abstained because England were one of the teams involved at The Oval but that the situation would have been different if the match had been against Australia. This stance, if correct, simply compounds the ECB's error in abstaining. To his credit, David Morgan, the new ICC president, did not support the decision. It prompted the former and great West Indian fast bowler Michael Holding to resign from the ICC Cricket Committee, which had earlier recommended to the Board that the result should remain unaltered. Leaving aside Michael Holding's honourable example, responses from cricketing bodies around the world have been lacking in the face of this decision and all its very grave implications. For its part, Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) is to ask the ICC to overturn its decision. Its secretary and chief executive, Keith Bradshaw, said recently (and correctly): “Cricket is the worse for this decision and it was opposed unanimously by the ICC's Cricket Committee, on which I sit.”
Law 21.10
MCC, not ICC, is still responsible for the Laws of Cricket. Law 21.10 is unequivocal: “Once the umpires have agreed with the scorers the correctness of the scores at the conclusion of the match—see Laws 3.15 (Correctness of scores) and 4.2 (Correctness of scores)—the result cannot thereafter be changed.” ICC has not explained how its decision, almost two years after the event, takes effect in the light of that wording. The reasoning is vacuous. It was, officially, “based on the view that in the light of the unique set of circumstances, the original result of the match was felt to be inappropriate.” This is despite the fact that ICC Board member witnesses admitted under oath at Hair's tribunal hearing that the umpires' decisions at The Oval were entirely in accordance with the Laws of Cricket.
The ICC's decision also makes a mockery of the Spirit of Cricket, which is a preamble to the Laws of Cricket but an integral aspect of them. It provides that the Spirit of the Game involves respect for the role of the umpires and the game's traditional values. The decision in question cannot be reconciled with these provisions.
An Attack on Sport
Leaving aside for a moment the absence of a legal basis in the Laws of Cricket for the Board's decision, it also strikes at the very heart of sport. Governing bodies should regulate, while appointed officials are entrusted to make decisions on the field of play. There has already been in a variety of sports some blurring of this principle: witness, for example, the overturning of refereeing decisions to brandish yellow or red cards in football matches. But this happens when the governing body or its delegate concludes that the on-field arbiter has erred in the context of the rules or laws of the game in question. The worrying aspect of the ICC decision, and the distinction from these other examples, is that it was reached notwithstanding the recognition by that selfsame body that the umpires' decisions in this case were entirely in accordance with the laws of the game. It is why the decision is so dangerous.
There is no point in the ICC claiming that it does not set a precedent; of course it does. Sport at bottom involves play, which, as the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga pointed out in Homo Ludens, “creates order, is order” because, “Into an imperfect world and into the confusion of life it brings a temporary, a limited perfection. Play demands order absolute and supreme. The least deviation from it 'spoils the game,' robs it of its character and makes it worthless.” It is no exaggeration to say that the ICC decision has precisely that effect.
Looking Ahead
Match-fixing, umpire demotion, a farcical World Cup, Zimbabwe, altering results. What next? If the ICC wishes to retain a modicum of its diminishing credibility, it should follow the lead of David Morgan and Michael Holding and reverse its decision.
Even if it does not, as there was no power to change the result, the ICC decision is a nullity. The match therefore should still be recorded as an England win.
