Cricket: Commissioner, welcome to the 21st century

By RICHARD BOOCK

If New Zealand Cricket are serious about finding a solution for so-called code-of-conduct breaches, they might want to start by appointing a commissioner who lives in this century.

In announcing the perfectly straight-forward decision to censure Wellington players Richard Petrie and Chris Nevin for alleged dissent last week, NZC's disciplinary commissioner Tim Castle has ended up raising more issues than he has solved.

This should not come as a complete surprise as his report on the alleged misconduct, which could have been summarised in about two sentences, spanned 19 pages and included - among other gems - part of an address from philosopher Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, an anecdote concerning Walter Hadlee, and a personal view that cricket can be played within the spirit of the game, rather than the laws.

Exactly where Solzhenitsyn figures in all of this is not yet entirely clear, but Castle rates his 1978 address at Harvard University as singularly profound, so apparently thought he had to squeeze it in somewhere.

For all that, however, this was not a difficult case. Both Petrie and Nevin conceded - following an incident where Central Districts' batsman Glen Sulzburger was given not out to a caught-behind appeal - that they asked the umpires whether they could "check upstairs".

As Castle writes in his findings the relevant playing condition states that "the on-field umpire has the discretion to call for a TV replay or not and should take a commonsense approach. Players may not appeal to the umpire to use the replay system - breach of this provision constitutes dissent and the player(s) could be liable for discipline under the Code of Conduct".

End of story, one would have thought. NZC's code of conduct is designed as a supplement to existing laws, so a decision should not have been difficult to reach. Only the matter of the penalty - which could have included a censure, a maximum fine of $2000 or a suspension - required discretion.

However, Castle dedicated the majority of his findings to the question of spirit versus law, something which not only was irrelevant to the Petrie-Nevin case, but was also flawed in logic He remembered when former New Zealand captain Jeff Crowe recalled Allan Border in 1987 after taking a catch on the half-volley, and went on to examine the similarity with an incident in 1947, when Hadlee recalled an Englishman who had apparently been given out lbw.

"Perhaps these examples are but interesting reflections of the past and not particularly relevant to today's game....," said Castle. "That may be the view of some people. It is not my view.

"Indeed, strictly for purposes relevant to this decision, I observe that there are, even today at first-class and international level, many instances where the traditional spirit, etiquette and conduct - so much an inherent part of the game - prevails..."

Conveniently, he seems to have glossed over past incidents such as Bodyline, Vinoo Mankad's repeated run-outs at the bowler's end, Mike Atherton's dirt-in-the-pocket saga and the underarm incident - to name but a very few.

Central Districts selector Basil Netten says he is mystified by comments that Sulzberger should have walked last week instead of forcing the umpire to make the decision.

"That sort of talk is from the 19th century," he said. "We're supposed to be living in the new millennium now."