Off the ball: Cricket could be changed forever

The row between the International Cricket Council and India has the potential to split the sport asunder, as DAVID LEGGAT writes.

Test cricket has had three great crises in its 125-year history, and with three vastly different backdrops.

In 1932-33, England's trip to Australia produced the Bodyline controversy, when England's fast bowlers launched a bouncer fusillade aimed primarily at stopping the phenomenal Don Bradman's runmaking talents.

Cables were exchanged, governments were involved and it nearly led to a break in relations between the games oldest rivals.

In 1977, Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer launched World Series Cricket. He scooped the world's finest players from under their administrators' noses, dressed them in coloured clothing, and paid them handsomely for three years. Many of those players swear it was the toughest cricket of their lives.

Official test cricket continued, albeit with a host of new faces, before the renegades returned came back and life resumed, pretty much as normal.

Now the game is facing the third real threat, in the form of the International Cricket Council's standoff with the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Indian officials have been given an extended deadline to 7.30 tonight (NZ time) to withdraw Virender Sehwag from the squad for the first test against England, which is due to start at Mohali on Monday.

Sehway received a one-match ban from referee Mike Denness for his behaviour during the second test in South Africa last month.

India reacted furiously. Having had six players punished from the game, they insisted that Denness be withdrawn - to which the South Africans cravenly agreed - with the result that the third test became an unofficial game.

India then claimed Sehwag had served his suspension; the ICC says he hasn't and there you have it.

Irrespective of the outcome to this Mexican standoff, it has raised an issue which won't simply go away: the authority of a sport's ruling body has been seriously undermined.

At first glance, this squabble has a racial undertone; the white men waving a big stick at the Asian upstarts. This is nothing new. India and Pakistan have complained of colonial heavy-handedness from ICC headquarters at Lords for many years.

India's autocratic president, Jagmohan Dalmiya, was the ICC president from 1997-2000. Contrary to some opinions, he is not a massively popular figure in his homeland and got the top job by only a 17-13 vote two months ago.

At ICC meetings, when he was India's delegate some years ago, he brought a new approach to the usually reserved, almost genteel ways of that body. He apparently had a habit of standing and shouting across the table if he did not get his way. Nevertheless, the 61-year-old from Calcutta wields significant power and is leading the Indian charge.

"He can be a bit brusque sometimes, but he is a very clever man," wrote Indian commentator Harsha Bhogle. "He can be a bit in-your-face and he loves a contest because he backs himself to win."

A key reason for the present skirmish is our old friend the greenback. Cricket is big business and should England pack their bags, as they have threatened to do, it will have weighty repercussions for the Indian game. There are many millions of dollars washing round the subcontinent cricket field. Apart from sponsorship money and betting interests, there are massive television rights.

The focus, as decision time approaches, is all about saving face. India will not want to be seen as the bad guys in black hats, but if the ICC caves in this weekend the game will never be the same. A line in the sand will have been broken.

The ICC will effectively have had a leg chopped off, and the door will have opened to further challenges down the line to the rule of the game. You can be sure they won't be far away.