Category Archives: New Zealand

Anzac Day glorifies war

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IN AUSTRALIA, Anzac Day is a means to promote militarism and nationalism. It marks the day when Australian forces invaded Turkey in 1915, entering World War I.

Sixty thousand Australians were killed in that war and nearly 16 million people died worldwide. It was no event over which to rejoice.

Anzac Day was initially used during the war to recruit people to fight on the other side of the world. In 1916 and 1917, Anzac Day became a means of supporting conscription.

After 1918, there was a long period when people were fed up with what they had exprienced during the war. Economic conditions were not good due to the numerous strikes caused by an increasingly militant workforce. During that time, Anzac Day was hardly celebrated.

Once the league for returned servicemen was formed, the government started supporting it and handed over control of Anzac Day to the league. During the great depression, the league grew in number as it offered unemployment relief.

Class tensions were rife at this time and Anzac Day marchers were told not to march according to rank. This created some kind of a covering of class differences and Anzac Day was promoted as a means of unifying the nation. But as the nation’s anti-war sentiment grew during the Vietnam War, so too did the popularity of Anzac Day.

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating began the current revival of Anzac Day as a nationalist celebration. Social spending was falling and Anzac Day was used as a poultice to project the spirit of nationalism and to hide class distinctions. Hawke brought back the pilgrimage to Gallipoli and Keating spoke long and loud about the sacrifice on the Kokoda Track.

John Howard took this to a new level, invoking Anzac Day and building up a spirit of militarism to justify Australia’s participation in wars in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anzac Day is meant to be a day that recognises the horrors of war. Instead, it has become a day that caters to militarism, imperialism and conservatism.

No soldier would want to glorify the events at Gallipoli. War is not a thing that those who fought in enjoyed. Sensible people should reject this celebration and boycott what happens because all it is doing is making a good and glorious event out of the misery of war.

Australian cricket continues on its old, merry path

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EARLIER this year, after England sealed a resounding 3-1 win in the Ashes Test series, Australian cricket authorities, apparently all shaken up, launched an inquiry to find out why the team had been beaten, and so comprehensively too.

This was the third time that Tasmania’s Ricky Ponting had led the national team to a loss in the Ashes series; Ponting lost twice in England, in 2005 and 2009. The Ashes is the series that matters most to Australia as England is historically the enemy.

When the inquiry reported back and recommended sweeping changes, there was hope that things would look different this summer. Of course, the captain had to go – of that there was little doubt. But despite a lot of talk, much promise of change, one finds that with the summer cricket season nearly a third over, things are pretty much the same.

Australia has a new bunch of selectors but they follow the same methods as their predecessors. Before the two-Test series against New Zealand began, the selectors had the chance to get rid of some of the older members of the squad, people like Mike Hussey and Ponting, usher in some youngsters and start the process of rebuilding.

Two Tests were played in South Africa before the series against New Zealand but the same old faces were seen in action. On returning from that country, some changes forced themselves on the selectors – a fairly large number of players had sustained injuries. Opener Shane Watson was one. The selectors’ reaction was the same as that of those who have gone before them – bring in an opener from New South Wales, the state that is the most influential in cricket in the country. It doesn’t matter that the man, David Warner, is not suited to the role.

The other opener, Phillip Hughes, was retained despite a very shaky showing in South Africa. He got two scores of 9 in the first Test, and 88 and 11 in the second and showed, as he had against England last year, that he is still susceptible to the moving ball early in the innings. But he is from New South Wales. Hence he stayed put.

Hughes got 10 and 7 in the first Test against New Zealand. He has stayed on to open in the second Test too. His first innings effort in the second Test is done – all of 4 runs, again caught at slip. But I’m willing to bet that when India lines up against Australia on Boxing Day in Melbourne – that is the next Test of the summer season – Hughes will still be there.

Shaun Marsh was another player injured after the South African Tests. He is still on the mend and may be fit to play against India. But who will be moved out to make way for him? Ponting? Hussey? Or will he be sacrificed as an opener, the most difficult job in Test cricket, so that the two old men can save their jobs?

When it came to the bowlers, the selectors had to ring some changes. Mitchell Johnson, after another erratic tour, was injured. So too Ryan Harris. Two new men had to be brought in. The selectors picked James Pattinson and Mitchell Starc. Judging from the way the previous bunch of selectors handled the debut of Patrick Cummins in the second Test in South Africa – the man has sustained a serious heel injury and is unlikely to play again this summer – one has to wait and see how Pattinson and Starc pull up after the Tests against New Zealand.

Given the appearance of Pattinson and Starc, the selectors loudly proclaimed that young blood was being infused; in other words, they, the selectors, were taking bold, new steps. But, pray, if someone had not been brought in to replace the injured bowlers, how would the 11 have been made up?

Ponting failed in South Africa. He made one score of 60-plus; anyone who saw him make that score would have concluded that it was time for him to quit. It was a painful innings from a man who is widely acknowledged as the second best batsman produced by Australia, after Sir Donald Bradman. But he is allowed to stay on.

Hussey got 15 in the first Test against New Zealand. In South Africa, he scored 1, 0, 20 and 39. He is still in the team despite being 36 and blocking the entry of some promising youngster. He will be there for the series against India too, have no fear.

The argument used by the selectors will be that you need some experience in the ranks; after all, they can point to their opponents, India, as an example. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V.V.S. Laxman and Virender Sehwag, the nucleus of the Indian batting, are all above 30. Tendulkar is 38. The difference is that they are all scoring and scoring heavily. Just yesterday, Sehwag hammered the highest score in one-day cricket, 219, against the West Indies. Ponting, by contrast, has not scored a hundred for something like 18 Tests.

But the Australian selectors are too scared to make changes; they want to please all the little cliques in cricket circles and are unwilling to rock the boat. Anyone who cares about Australian cricket would have to hope and pray that India wins the series and overwhelmingly too. Then we might see some dramatic change.

Time for Australia to blood new cricketers

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NEXT week, the Australian international cricket season kicks off with the first Test against New Zealand. The Kiwis will play two Tests and then India will play four more, beginning in December. Next year, Australia, India and Sri Lanka will play a triangular limited overs tournament.

Australia is in the midst of a transition but it remains to be seen to what extent the new set of selectors are prepared to experiment. Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey are both well into their 30s and not exactly setting the Nullarbor on fire when they go out to bat. Mitchell Johnson has been erratic to put it mildly, with more downsides than upsides. And Brad Haddin has shown an inclination to throw his wicket away at the worst of times. His keeping is pretty poor too.

There are adequate replacement waiting in the wings. One of the very first fast-bowling options tried out, Patrick Cummins, has shown that he can serve as the fulcrum of a good pace attack. There are others like James Pattinson who can be blooded.

The two Tests against New Zealand could well be used to try out some of the aspiring players. The Kiwis are not that strong an outfit and Australia can be reasonably confident of winning both Tests, even if they blood a few new players.

Ponting is not the best batsman in the side any more; Clarke is clearly much better. Usman Khawaja needs to get more time out in the middle if he is to become a regular member of the team and Shane Watson needs to move down the order. The selectors should not be afraid to tap Ponting and Hussey on their shoulders and tell them it is time to go.

Whenever talk of Ponting retiring comes up, he always points to Sachin Tendulkar and says he can do something similar; the Indian has shown no dropoff in scoring, even though he is a year older than Ponting. But Ponting has been going through a drought for the last 18 months and it shows no sign of going away.

With the bowlers, too, there needs to be some firm talk from the selectors. Johnson should be dropped and others tried out. One of the revelations about Cummins is that he seems to have a great deal of intelligence and uses it when bowling; he just does not go out and bang it down the wicket. Peter Siddle does not use his brains when he bowls – at best, he is an honest trier. One should look to the example of Dennis Lillee and the late Malcolm Marshall, who always bowled well within themselves but always got results. Both used their brains when they were out in the middle.

Back in 1999, the West Indies were bowled out for 51 in a Test against Australia in the Caribbean. But the next two Tests were a remarkable turnaround, engineered in the main by one Brian Lara. That was taken by the Windies to mean that change was not needed and that the existing team was good enough to keep soldiering on. Twelve years on, the West Indies are still to win a Test series against decent opposition.

Australia can allow itself to be lulled into a similar state of complacency. The team was bowled out for 47 in South Africa recently but won the next Test with a strong showing. The latter result should not be taken to indicate that the 47 all out was a minor aberration; on the contrary, it was a warning that there is something wrong with the team that needs to be fixed, and fast.

There are good times to make changes in cricket teams, and bad times too. If the selectors are bold enough to make changes for the Tests against New Zealand, it will serve Australia well in the long run. If they opt to wait until desperate times arrive to make changes, then Australia’s goal of trying to climb up the ladder of international cricket will remain just that: a goal.

New Zealand finally gets a monkey off its back

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THE Shaky Isles have finally got a monkey off their back by winning the rugby world cup title again. They won the first, held in their own country, in 1987, and have been knocked out at various stages of the tournament ever since.

Due to the series of losses, they have been accused of choking. I’m sure it won’t take long for the next diatribe to emerge – that they choke whenever they play in this tournament away from home.

The manner in which New Zealand won was strange; they were defending for a better part of the game and their flair was totally missing. But then they had raised their game to the level of a final the previous week to defeat Australia – whom they overpowered though it was not reflected on the scoreboard – and peaked a week too early. It is generally difficult for a team to lift to that level twice in a single tournament.

Hence, on the day of the final, New Zealand was somewhat listless. The first half of the game saw numerous opportunities come their way but their running game was desultory and the kicking of Piri Weepu inaccurate. As a result of his wayward kicks, they missed out on eight points in that half. The only points came through a try by loosehead prop Tony Woodcock when a gaping gap appeared at lineout time after Jerome Kaino had gone up to receive the throw; Kaino flicked the ball down to Woodcock and he charged through.

Incidentally, Woodcock scored twice in similar fashion in the last game of the Tri Nations in 2008 and Ali Williams did something similar in the first Test of the 2005 British and Irish Lions tour of New Zealand.

In contrast to New Zealand’s powerful show against Australia in the semi-finals, France had a listless game against Wales in the semi-finals, one they did not deserve to win. They defended for the most part.

The French played a meandering game for the first 40 minutes of the final against the All Blacks but in the second they were transformed and were unlucky not to win the cup in the end.

The All Blacks defended grimly for much of the second 40 minutes and saw very little of French territory. Had they let the French through that chain-gang-like defensive line even once, it would have been all over. Once France scored in the second half, only a point separated the teams – and it would end that way.

But then fate decided it that way. The New Zealand public have gone through a great deal of trauma in the last few months, with an earthquake in Christchurch. Had the All Blacks lost at home, it would have been too cruel a blow to a nation that lives and breathes rugby.

France has now contested three finals and lost all. Australia has been in three finals and won two, New Zealand likewise. England has contested three finals as well, but won only one. South Africa has won both the finals it entered, the first courtesy of a dose of food poisoning which the All Blacks were served the night before the final.

The 2015 cup will be held in England.

Wayne Barnes proves that incompetence will help one make progress

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ENGLISHMAN Wayne Barnes has earned a reputation for refereeing bloopers, continuing the trend he set in the World Cup rugby tournament of 2007 when he awarded France a try from a blatant forward pass.

That try helped France to knock out tournament favourites New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Barnes does not appear to have improved much – at the ongoing tournament, which concludes on Sunday, he denied Wales a try conversion when the ball had clearly gone between the uprights. This was in a pool game with South Africa and as Wales lost the game by a point, they certainly had reason to feel cheated.

But Barnes has been rewarded for this blunder by being given the third-placed decider which is being held on Friday (October 21) between Australia and Wales. It looks like the man has a merry gang of backers somewhere in the International Rugby Board.

If one thinks that Barnes only makes occasional errors, think again. On the day of the Australia-New Zealand semi-final, I was trying to kill time in the afternoon in the run-up to the game and suddenly remembered that I had not watched the final Tri-Nations game between the All Blacks and the Wallabies. I sat down to do so.

Coincidentally, the referee happened to be Barnes. After I noticed a couple of refereeing errors, I decided to make some notes. This is some of what I noticed:

  • In the eighth minute, Barnes failed to notice that Australian winger Digby Ioane had gone off his feet in a ruck and was continuing to play the ball.
  • Seven minutes later Barnes asked New Zealand to position themselves for a five-metre scrum when one of their players grounded the ball in his own try-in goal area. It should have been a dropout from the 22-metre line.
  • In the 13th minute, Australian lock Daniel Vickerman played the ball while sprawled on the ground in a ruck. Barnes did not blow his whistle.
  • A minute later, Australian fly-half Quade Cooper took a swing at New Zealand captain Richie McCaw; again Barnes did not notice.
  • In the 17th minute, Australian centre Anthony Faingaa brought off a try-saving tackle from an offside position. Barnes failed to notice.
  • In the 21st minute, an Australian forward deliberately went to ground to prevent the progress of a maul. Barnes? His mind was elsewhere.
  • A minute after half-time, New Zealand lock Ali Williams tripped Adam Ashley-Cooper who appealed to Barnes. The referee refused to get involved.
  • Ten minutes later, Australian captain Jams Horwill grabbed hold of All Blacks centre Ma’a Nonu while both were on the ground in a ruck and would not let go. It was clearly visible – but Barnes was of a different opinion.
  • In the 64th minute, three All Blacks forwards were offside when they charged down a kick but Barnes kept his whistle in his pocket.
  • In the 75th minute, Isaia Toeava, who had come on as a substitute for the New Zealanders, pushed the ball back after tacklers had gone right over him. He was on the ground at the time. Barnes did not notice.
  • In the 76th minute, Australian hooker Sai’a Faingaa threw into the lineout – and even a blind man would have seen that the throw was wildly off centre. Not Barnes, though.

It is ages since I covered a game of any sport so I would probably have missed a lot more. But what I have noted should provide an indication of Barnes’ abilities. Australia won this game 25-20 and took the Tri-Nations title as a result. Had someone like Craig Joubert, who has been rightly picked to referee the World Cup final between New Zealand and France on October 23, been officiating, one doubts any of these contraventions of the rules would have escaped him.

But then there is one fundamental difference between Joubert and Barnes – the former is competent, the latter is a mass of incompetence.

Rugby union is still a fringe game, even though 20 nations gather once in four years to play a World Cup. If the IRB wants to encourage more people to come to games, it is surely doing the wrong thing by continuing to use officials like Barnes for high-profile games. People may call the third-place playoff a waste of time – but given that both teams will be smarting at having not made it to the final, it often turns out to be quite entertaining. In 2003, New Zealand, miffed at having lost to Australia in the semis, hammered France 40-14. It was a good game.

Australia and Wales are both proud nations and neither will give each other any quarter in the third-place playoff either. But the game may well degenerate into a farce – remember, one Wayne Barnes is holding the whistle.

Australia should be grateful this was not the final

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AUSTRALIA has one reason to be grateful after last night’s humiliation at the hands of the All Blacks in the world cup rugby union tournament – this was not the final.

According to the draw, Australia was expected to come through the pool stages on top of its pool. play Wales/Samoa/Fiji in the quarter-finals, England or France in the semi-finals, and meet New Zealand in the final. That would have been a real blockbuster for the organisers given the fact that the tournament is being hosted in New Zealand.

But as we know, things did not run according to this script. Australia was beaten by Ireland and finished second in its pool; this meant a quarter-final against South Africa and a semi-final against New Zealand. It lost the semi-final 6-20 last night. Had this been the final, there would have been calls from Australian sportswriters for somebody’s head; as things stand, there is not much criticism because the same sportswriters had made it look as though Australia had a genuine chance against New Zealand.

There’s one aspect of the two teams which strikes me – Australia plays mostly as individuals while New Zealand plays as a team. This is graphically illustrated by looking at two players – Quade Cooper and Aaron Cruden. For some reason, Cooper decided to start a running battle with the New Zealand captain Richie McCaw some months ago. It developed into physical confrontation at times and Cooper, without realising what he was biting off, kept portraying himself as New Zealand public enemy No 1.

It was a wrong decision. Cooper is an infant in international rugby while McCaw has been around for eight years and is quite easily the best in his position in the world. The New Zealand rugby captain is more important to the 4 million citizens of that country than even their own prime minister; Cooper has no such status or anything even remotely like it in Australia.

Cooper built up a lot of pressure on himself and clearly could not handle it in front of the hostile New Zealand crowds. Every time he made a mistake on the field during the tournament, the crowds cheered. They booed whenever he got the ball. Did anyone in the team advise Cooper against building up this image? Clearly not. The coach or senior players could well have done so. But they left Cooper to his own devices.

Look at the case of Cruden. He has been suddenly thrust onto the international stage; he would have been in Fiji on a holiday had not Daniel Carter been injured. Then Carter’s back-up Colin Slade got injured. And Cruden was suddenly the No 1 fly-half in the country.

It helped no end that there are four others from Cruden’s Super 15 team playing for the All Blacks and all in the backline too. Piri Weepu, Ma’a Nonu, Conrad Smith and Cory Jane all play for the Wellington Hurricanes where Cruden does the job of fly-half. And they all helped him no end – Weepu took over the duties of kicking which a fly-half normally shoulders, Jane took over the job (along with fullback Israel Dagg) of collecting the aerial balls, and Nonu and Smith did a marvellous job in covering for any lapses in Cruden’s defence. Cruden was targeted by the Australians but it all came to naught. Freed up of all these tasks, Cruden played an excellent game and even kicked a drop-goal, something with New Zealand rarely does. He has grown into a man in one and a half games and credit goes to both him and his teammates.

That comparison shows why New Zealand won and why Australia lost. Cooper kicked the game off and sent the ball out on the full. From that moment, it was clear that he was going to stuff up things repeatedly and that he could not handle the pressure of around 50,000 of the 60,000 crowd being against him. His captain should have spoken to him and tried to soothe him and unruffle his feathers. But James Horwill did nothing of the kind.

Australian coach Robbie Deans was, unfortunately, too proud to call Cooper off and put Berrick Barnes on for the second half. That’s a pity because with a sensible fly-half on the ground, Australia would have benefitted. But it was not to be. There is some background to the promotion of Cooper as the fly-half but Deans apparently has not learned from that experience.

Australia also thought that David Pocock would function as he did in the quarter-final against the Springboks when he got away with a lot due to lax refereeing. But the man who officiated at the semi-final, Craig Joubert, is a top-notch referee and Pocock was pinged repeatedly.

The final is October 23 and New Zealand faces France, the latter being a team that can play to please the purists one day and lose to a rank outsider the next. If the French team that turned up to play England arrives for the final, then New Zealand may well lose. But if the French team that played Wales in the quarter-final plays in the final, then it will be a cakewalk for the home team.

Why is Wayne Barnes allowed to referee rugby games?

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During the last World Cup rugby tournament in France, Englishman Wayne Barnes ensured that tournament favourites New Zealand would be thrown out at the quarter-final stage by allowing a French try that was scored off a blatant forward pass.

And this wasn’t one of those line-ball decisions – there was a difference of about two metres between the two French players who exchanged the pass.

Now Barnes has done it again, denying Wales a chance of defeating the reigning champions, South Africa, at the 2011 championships.

Wales was denied a converted penalty and the match, a Group D game, was lost by a single point in the end. South Africa came off second best despite the win. (Game highlights here)

Penalties can be subject to video evidence; it all depends on the referee’s decision which is final. Barnes chose not to call in the television match official. He is obviously confident in his own abilities, the mark of many mediocre people.

In a tournament which has seen close matches until now, this would have been the icing on the cake.

Instead, one stupid, incompetent official’s mistake has cost an aspiring team, which played its heart out and deserved to win, a spirit-uplifting victory.

This is especially so in Group D which is the toughest of the four five-nation groups in the tournament. Apart from South Africa and Wales, Fiji and Samoa are also in the group and neither is a pushover.

Referees can spoil a game, no matter what levels of skill the players exhibit. And, horror of horrors, Barnes is down to officiate Wales’ last game on October 2. As this article points out, in the 2007 tournament, Fiji beat Wales 38-34 and kept the Welsh out of the quarter-finals.

Barnes is a terrible advertisement for a game which needs to grow a great deal – it is still only a minor sport. Idiots should not be masqueraded as officials, the sport will suffer.

The International Rugby Board should ensure that Barnes takes no further part in this tournament – that is if they are interested in the growth of the game.

Australia’s tactics for World Cup rugby fraught with danger

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AUSTRALIA enters next month’s World Cup rugby union tournament as one of the teams in with a chance – at least, based on the personnel and the strengths of the other teams involved.

But the Australian coach, the New Zealander Robbie Deans, is resorting to a gameplan that has been tried before – when he was the understudy to John Mitchell, the coach for the All Blacks at the 2003 Cup. And Mitchell’s tactics failed that time.

In 2003, the Auckland Blues won the super rugby title. Mitchell based his national team for the cup on four players from the Blues – mercurial stand-off Carlos Spencer, wingers Doug Howlett and Josevata Rokocoko, and full-back Malili Muliaina. Spencer was the dynamo but his spontaneous style of play meant that when he was good, he was very, very good – and when he was bad, the opposition would win. Mitchell went to the extent of getting rid of an All Black legend Christian Cullen to make space for Muliaina.

In the run-up to the 2003 cup, the All Blacks swept all before them. They hammered South Africa 52-16 in the Boks own backyard and humiliated Australia 50-21 in Sydney. The Australians scored a couple of consolation tries towards the end of the game and that scoreline makes them look much better than they deserve to.

Given this buildup, former All Blacks winger Stu Wilson was brave enough to commit himself to print during the 2003 Cup, saying that Australia could not beat New Zealandno matter what they did. The teams met after New Zealand had disposed of South Africa in the quarter-finals, with Spencer pulling off one of his characteristic bits of deception to account for one try via centre Leon MacDonald.

But, alas, in the semi-final, Australia did upset New Zealand. An expansive cut-out pass thrown by Spencer to Rokocoko was intercepted by Australian centre Stirling Mortlock who then sprinted nearly 90 metres to score. This happened early on in the game and New Zealand never recovered.

The pictures in New Zealand papers next day were of Spencer sitting on the ground with his head in his hands, looking miserable. He never played for the All Blacks after that.

Australia has a similar set-up for the upcoming cup, with stand-off Quade Cooper being a clone of Spencer. He has been instrumental in the Queensland Reds winning the super rugby title this year. Cooper has a similar element of surprise to Spencer in his style of play and can often make an opponent look foolish. But when his tactics do not come off – as happened earlier this year when Australia played New Zealand in Auckland – his team runs a poor second.

Deans is gambling on the gains made by the Reds this year to a large extent – he has even appointed the Reds captain, James Horwill, as the national team’s leader, deposing Rocky Elsom who really hasn’t done too much wrong as skipper. It is a big gamble but one guesses that Deans can take it, as Australia’s tactics in the last two Cups have not paid dividends. And Deans has the security of having recently had his contract extended.

Surprisingly, nobody has mentioned this similarity in tactics. Or the fact that it failed in 2003. Oh, well, perhaps people will be wise with hindsight.

History tells us: the ICC must take the blame for match-fixing

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IT WOULD be amusing to read all about the apportioning of blame by various people in the wake of the recent revelations about match-fixing, were it not for the fact that the whole thing is so damn serious. But then one should not be surprised about all the breast-beating that is going on – it is common for people to concentrate on the effects and forget the cause.

It does not take much effort to go back to the event that provided the seed for the growth of match-fixing in cricket. Remember, one is not talking about betting on cricket, that has been around for as long as the game has been played.

In 1980 the first international one-day cricket match was held in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. This was sanctioned by the International Cricket Council and it marked the start of trouble. The matches in Sharjah increased in number and India’s win in the 1983 World Cup gave the tournaments held in the desert emirate a fillip.

For one, the Sharjah tournaments were built on one factor – the enmity between India and Pakistan. There was always a third team invited (or even a fourth) to make up the numbers, but given the large numbers of Indian and Pakistani expatriates in the UAE, they were the focus.

Additionally, the Sharjah cricket organisers opened the doors to illegal betting of huge amounts by people of dubious reputations. Apart from the cricket, celebrities from both India and Pakistan were invited to attend. The UAE is a peculiar place – you can walk in to the country with a million dollars in a suitcase and no questions are asked but if you carry a Bible in, you may be questioned for an hour or more. Before oil came into the picture, Dubai was better known as the source of gold smuggling into India.

Both India and Pakistan have massive amounts of black money in their respective economies and lots of this money was used to wager large amounts in Sharjah. A great many dubious people offered awards in Sharjah to buy popularity and these were accepted without any hesitation – Pakistan batsman Javed Miandad earned more than a million dollars in 1986 when he hit a six off the last ball of a game to defeat India and win a tournament for Pakistan.

The UAE is known to harbour a number of people who are wanted in other parts of the world, people like the smuggler Dawood Ibrahim, who fled India in 1993 after he was being sought by police as a suspect in the bombing of the Bombay stock exchange that same year.

It is inconceivable that the ICC was unaware of all the goings-on but it chose to turn a blind eye. Cricketers were benefitting financially – the Sharjah organisers used to present three cricketers with money at every tournament – and the ICC was being paid the fees it sought. What’s more, any ICC bigwig who visited during the tournament was treated like God.

But the tournaments provided the means for illegal bookies and people of their ilk to gain access to players – one merely had to host a reception in Dubai for the cricketers (no liquor is served in hotels in Sharjah, hence the choice of Dubai which is just a 20-minute drive from Sharjah) during the tournament and one could pal up with the best players from India and Pakistan.

The money attracted other teams too and as the years went on the organisers scored their biggest coup by signing the West Indies, at that time the hottest property in world cricket. Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka all came and played and were feted and wined and dined. Nobody raised any question as to why cricket in the desert was needed. It was something like the Packer days again, only this time the ICC gave the whole shindig its blessing.

Prior to Sharjah, there was hardly any talk of throwing a game of cricket. It took a few years for the bookies to develop their contacts to the point where they could make demands. Sharjah began hosting two tournaments a year soon after it started operations and this provided a fast track for unsavoury activities to grow.

in the 1990s , there was more and more talk about matches being influenced by factors other than the players’ ability. On the Indian tour of the West Indies in 1997, one Test, when India fell for 81 when chasing a little over 100 for victory, was a game that came in for some examination. An Indian writer, R. Mohan of the well-known Indian paper, The Hindu, lost his job after his betting activities came to light. And by the turn of the century, a few cricketers had been found out and banned from the game.

It is easy to gain access to junior players once one knows the seniors. And mind you, the seniors need not be in the pay of bookies, but merely acquainted enough to be persuaded to introduce others to the men who pay cricketers to fix games. After all, if you were told that Al Capone wanted to meet you during the heyday of that gentleman’s existence, would you have turned it down?

The ICC never objected to cricket being played in Sharjah. The only reason why the tournaments are no longer being held there is because there is no space on the international calendar after the future tours programme was put into practice. The ICC has even shifted its own headquarters to Dubai – simply because it benefits from the no-tax regime in the UAE and also gets free flights from Emirates airline – which is owned by the ruling family of Dubai – for its officials. When an international body has sold itself out in this manner, can it ever hope to call attention to the wrong-doings of its players?

Howard has been rejected, not Australia

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WENDING his sorry way back from Singapore, after having been roundly snubbed by the International Cricket Conference after his bid to become the vice-president was rejected, former Australian prime minister John Howard is now trying to paint his rejection as a snub for Australia and New Zealand.

There is a one-word answer to this claim: bullshit.

It was the Australasian region’s chance to nominate a candidate and it was time for New Zealand to have a chance considering that, in the past, on both occasions when it was the region’s chance, an Australian took up the job – first Malcolm Gray and then Malcolm Speed. New Zealand had an excellent candidate, Sir John Anderson, a man who has worked with the ICC and shown remarkable aptitude as an administrator.

Howard claims that the cricket board of Australia approached him. This seems highly unlikely. What seems more likely is that Howard pulled a few strings in order to get his name put forward. He is a person who never wanted to leave public life; indeed, well before the 2007 elections, there were more than enough indications that if Howard continued to lead the coalition, it would meet with electoral disaster.

But Howard did not care; he hung on and suffered the ultimate ignominy. A sitting prime minister, he lost his seat to a political novice, former ABC newsperson Maxine McKew. If he had not been defeated, he would no doubt have hung on as an MP – the fact is he has no other skill other than being a politician. He has no administrative skills, no inter-personal skills, he can only manipulate public sentiment based on the lowest common denominator. And he has the imagination of a dry cucumber.

If any person other than Howard had been put forward as the nomination for ICC vice-president, there would have been no issue. But consider:

  • Howard did not support sporting sanctions against apartheid South Africa but was willing to back sanctions against Zimbabwe, leading to the obvious conclusion that it did not bother him when discrimination against blacks was being practised;
  • he used the military to board a ship full of asylum-seekers – Afghans and Iraqis – which was moving into Australian waters
  • he made no secret of the fact that reconciliation with Aborigines was not a priority of his, despite the fact that Australia has given its first people the raw end of the stick;
  • he has been known as someone who discriminates against people of colour
  • he never did a thing when Pauline Hanson was spreading the message of xenophobia across the country;
  • he was a staunch supporter of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, a gross injustice against a Muslim country;
  • he has been the greatest fan of shock-jock Alan Jones who, on more than one occasion, has been guilty of backing racist thugs. most notably those who were responsible for the riots in Cronulla.

These are just a few of the things which make it clear that Howard has a distinct problem dealing with people of colour. He would have been a disaster dealing with an organisation where the majority of the members are non-white – and the ICC is just that.

If Mark Taylor had been nominated would he have been rejected? Allan Border? Steve Waugh? Bill Lawry? Ian Chappell? Dennis Lillee? Jack Clarke, the current president of Cricket Australia? Damien Fleming? Paul Reiffel? Was Malcolm Speed or Malcolme Gray rejected? Howard is the problem, not any competent Australian.

Howard can continue to make brave noises about not withdrawing his nomination. In truth, he has nothing to do with it; only the boards of Australia and New Zealand can advance or withdraw it. By wheedling his way into contention, he has put the two boards in an awkward position.

Given that India is among the countries that has given Howard the thumbs-down, there is little chance that he will succeed in becoming the ICC vice-president. Had India not objected, Howard would have been accepted. But given all the reasons above, it is no wonder that Asian and African nations feel uneasy about accepting him as the chief of world cricket.