The world of cricket

Hello old friend: Steve Waugh, Allan Border and Mark Taylor get their hands back on the Ashes

The Ashes urn arrived in Australia for only the second time in 123 years this morning under tight security ahead of the summer’s battle for its ownership. The antique and fragile trophy landed in Sydney in a special carrying case, strapped into a business-class airline seat and handcuffed to the wrist of its curator.

“It’s just the symbol of what cricket’s all about, the great rivalry between Australia and England,” Allan Border, who was on hand to meet the special visitor from London, said. The ten-centimetre wooden trophy is kept at Lord’s and has only returned to Australia twice since it was given to a visiting English captain as a joke during the 1882-83 tour.

“This is an extremely rare opportunity to see the original urn,” the Museum of Sydney’s Beth Hise said. “I can’t see it ever coming back … not in the foreseeable future,” she said. The urn is reportedly insured for a “seven-figure sum” and will tour Australian museums over the next 14 weeks.

The trophy flew in on a Virgin Atlantic flight from London, reportedly with its own ticket made out in the name of “Urn, Ashes, Mr,” guarded by a coterie of security and curators who will take care of its every need during its Antipodean adventure. Only in 1988 has the urn been displayed in Australia and it rarely leaves the Lord’s museum.

Also see The Ashes, 2006.

Adam Gilchrist, one of central figures in the Australian cricket team, and child sponsor with World Vision (an organisation involved in poverty eradication), emphasised on the need for sportspersons to get involved with projects making a positive impact on community development.

“Sport is one of the world’s most powerful tools. We, sportspersons, can make a difference to lives of people less fortunate than us.”

He is the sponsor of an eight-year-old child, Mangesh, living with mother and two brothers in a slum area of Mumbai called Marol, as part of World Vision programme.

Launching World Vision India on Monday at the Taj, Gilchrist informed about his plans to visit Mangesh at home to get first-hand impression of the impact on `child a sponsor’ project on the child, family and community.

Awareness needed

Gilchrist pointed to the necessity for awareness among players about dangers of drugs in the wake of pace bolers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif testing positive for nandrolene. He was responding to a query about the latest development in Pakistan cricket, following an internal drug test by the PCB.

Gilchrist said: “Banned substances have been around in sport and in cricket, for a long time.

It is for the players to be aware about it and keep away. We in Australia are following the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) guidelines.”

Responding to question whether drug use in cricket was common knowledge, in the light of incidents in the past featuring Shane Warne and now involving the two Pakistan bowlers sent back from the Champions Trophy 2006, the Aussie said: “I feel the Pakistan players may have taken it (banned substances) by mistake. We have been through this before, losing Shane Warne before the World Cup, but did not allow the incident to pull us down.” Warne had been sent back from the 2003 World Cup after blood samples revealed presence of hydrochlorothiazide and amiloride, both diuretics normally used to aid temporary weight loss but also masking agents for performance-enhancing drugs.

Australia went on to win cricket’s premier event. The leg-spinner served out a one-year ban.

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting on Tuesday said the doping episode involving Pakistani pacemem Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammed Asif had come as a big surprise to his team and recalled how they had come out well from a similar scandal four years ago to win the World Cup.

“We have all been surprised and a bit shocked to know about the allegations. We don’t know much about it. It’s a PCB matter and they have to get to the bottom of this. We have to play tomorrow and that’s all we are focussing on,” he said on the eve of the match against West Indies.

Having gone through a similar scandal involving champion leg-spinner Shane Warne in 2003, Ponting said his squad did well to recover from the mighty blow.

“It was obviously pretty hard for us at that time. We had a team meeting once we found out about Shane’s incident. We decided to get everything out in the open and talk about it as much as we could that night itself so that it didn’t continue the next day into our cricket,” Ponting said.

Like the Pakistan Cricket Board had done prior to this edition’s Champions Trophy, the Australian Board had also tested all its players at home before the World Cup, which resulted in Warne’s positive dope test for a diuretic.

The PCB has announced a tribunal to look into the doping charges against Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has announced a three-man tribunal that will hear doping charges against fast bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif, possibly as early as this week. Nasim Ashraf, the PCB chairman, announced that the tribunal will be chaired by barrister Shahid Hamid and will also include Intikhab Alam, the former Test captain and coach, and an unnamed doctor who is an expert on doping.

Shoaib and Asif, sent home on the eve of Pakistan’s first match after they tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone, await the results of the ‘B’ samples. “Shoaib and Asif are likely to appear before the tribunal later this week,” Ashraf told reporters at a press conference in Karachi. “On the recommendation of the tribunal and of the overall findings we will take action. The responsibility is on the alleged offenders [to prove their innocence] because it is an individual act.”

Incidentally, Hamid represented former player Salim Malik during a match-fixing inquiry in 1998 but left midway through the case. Malik was given a life ban in 2000. The doctor, the PCB added, would be named on Thursday.

The row over compensation for the abandoned Oval Test rumbles on.

Last week, the Pakistan board refused the ECB’s claim for £800,000 to cover losses resulting from the abandoned match. The PCB insists that the ICC are responsible for compensation as it was the umpires, their employees, whose actions led to the match being called off. The ECB has now given the PCB until the end of the month to settle.

“The Pakistan board has been very consistent in saying to us that England are the totally innocent party and whatever happens England should not be economically penalised on that Test match,” David Collier, the ECB chief executive, said. “The argument, particularly following the hearing at The Oval, that Pakistan has raised is that there was a causal effect to prevent the game being concluded and Pakistan’s contention would be that the claim should be to the ICC rather than to the PCB.

“We’ve now formally gone back to Pakistan and have pointed out to Pakistan that, in our opinion, if there is a causal effect then it is up to Pakistan to take up with the third party not for England to take up. So the ball is back in Pakistan’s court.

“If there isn’t an obvious resolution it can be referred to the ICC’s panel. That is the proper course we would take, rather than engage in any legal fight. We will refer it at the end of this month if we have not had a response.”

“We have said in our letter that the Oval Test not being completed is a case of cause and effect. Saleem Altaf, Pakistan’s director of cricket operations, said last week. “The ECB should realise that we have been vindicated in our stand on ball-tampering, which led to the effect. They should contact the person responsible.”

Model batsman: Kevin Pietersen

Ricky Ponting has given Kevin Pietersen a huge boost on the eve of the Ashes by saying he could be the game’s next superstar. Ponting, who is not known for pumping up the opposition, made the claim in his upcoming Captain’s Diary and also said Pietersen was in a group of batsmen alongside Virender Sehwag and Adam Gilchrist who “play without fear”.

“In my view the biggest danger man could be Pietersen, who might even develop into the next superstar of world cricket,” Ponting wrote. “Potentially he’s that good.

“Pietersen is the one who is a standout at the moment. His technique, although it looks a bit different, has stood up very well at international level.”

Pietersen made his Test debut in the 2005 Ashes and was a constant threat as he compiled 473 runs at 52.55. He finished the series with 158 at The Oval, which was an innings that shut the door on Australia’s chances of levelling the contest. Ponting will have another close-up view of Pietersen on Saturday when the teams play in the Champions Trophy in Jaipur.

Also see The Ashes, 2006.

BCCI’s letter to ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed

The statement of International Cricket Council Chief Executive Malcolm Speed in Jaipur that it would be a grave mistake to “talk of Azhar’s case and that of others in the same breath” is highly disappointing, if not outrageous.

His assertion that Shane Warne and Herschelle Gibbs had already been fined and suspended by their respective cricket Boards and that their cases cannot be compared with that of Mohammed Azharuddin who had been banned for life by the Indian Board sounds bizarre.

If he is reacting to the statement of some officials of the Indian Board that Azhar had undergone enough punishment for his purported sin, then it must be clarified that there is a feeling among Indian Board members that what the Indian board did when the scandal broke out might have been correct even if it was a knee-jerk reaction, but in retrospect they feel that the Board had been too harsh on its players considering the way the other Boards went about protecting the guilty.

The general opinion is that Azhar had undergone enough punishment and that he should be allowed to lead his life like cricketers who had faced similar charges in other countries but are going about as if they had done no wrong.

Yes, Azhar should not be compared with those who got away with murder, people who continued to play after serving a token punishment even after they had admitted that they had taken cash to under perform and those who unabashedly said they accepted money from bookies. One is being persecuted and condemned for life while others strut about as paragons of virtues!

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