At the MCC Spirit of Cricket's address this year Tony Greig, cricket commentator, Kerry Packer rebel, former England captain and a beneficiary of South Africa's apartheid era, urged India the current cricketing superpower to follow Nelson Mandela's approach to solve the problems of world cricket. This article will discuss the essence of Mandela' s approach and speculate whether the beneficiaries of the ancien regime can dictate the approach to be taken by the latest hegemon.
In 'The Shock Doctrine', Naomi Klein has vividly captured the changes in South Africa as the erstwhile apartheid regime made way for an all inclusive rainbow nation. As the F W De Klerk government's power began to fade, Nelson Mandela had to decide if South Africans needed political and economic equality or to settle for political equality and let his oppressors continue with their power over the South African economy. He chose the latter, unlike Mugabe, but he also set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to record the atrocities of the apartheid regime. There was to be no retribution for the atrocities of the apartheid regime. This proved to be a pragmatic decision since South Africa did not see a flight of capital and knowhow, unlike neighbouring Zimbabwe. However, now in this rainbow nation the winners of the apartheid regime and a few blacks live in gated communities but are isolated from the poor black majority. Thus South Africa is governed by a new but global form of apartheid where money is the basis of discrimination.
To understand the problems in world cricket we need a brief history of cricket's administration down the years. International cricket used to be governed by England, Australia and South Africa under the aegis of the Imperial Cricket Conference which was later rechristened the International Cricket Conference (ICC). Until recently cricket was run primarily by England and Australia who enjoyed veto powers on the game's decisions and which they used to advance their own interest with occasional decisions of noblesse oblige. It was only in 1993 did the ICC become a truly democratic organisation and when the veto powers were rescinded. Today for any ICC decision to be applicable it needs a 70% vote and India with the assured support of 40% of the membership has been able to thwart some of the recommendations of the erstwhile veto wielding nations.
Just like Bill Gates had not noticed the significance of the internet until 1995, the erstwhile imperial powers of cricket had not reckoned with India's arrival as a global cricketing superpower. The process started in 1983 when Kapil Dev's group of no hopers won the cricket world cup in London. Along with the introduction of colour TV and the increasing wealth of India's burgeoning middle class, cricket found a market hitherto unheard of. BCCI (Indian cricket's administrators) now found its coffers overflowing, had many new friends and found itself leading the group of the Asian members of the ICC. When BCCI's representative Jagmohan Dalmiya was elected as the President of the ICC in 1997 it was the culmination of a transfer of power within the ICC. Ever since India with its supporters have ruled the roost in ICC matters and even Australia and South Africa support India in lure for the largesse that BCCI has to offer. So the most disgruntled power in the ICC is the English Cricket Board (ECB), who have discouraged its players from participating in the cash bonanza called the India Premier League (IPL). Most media in the UK, with the exception of ITV and Cricinfo, did not even cover the cricket played in the IPL a tournament which attracted most of the leading players in the world.
With this historical background, I will now discuss the validity of the Mandela-esque plea made by Tony Greig..
Imagine a market where two dominant firms enjoy dominant market shares for a long time and used this power to sustain their hold on the market. Imagine a hitherto small firm from this market suddenly outstripping the dominant duo with revenues significantly larger than the once dominant firms. Is it incumbent on the new monopoly to cooperate or collude with the ancien regime?
Also, has the US, the dominant hegemon, shared its power and wealth with the peoples of the world or at least with all its own people? Doesn't the UN resemble the Imperial Cricket Conference with five countries wielding the veto power. Have the South African elite shared its wealth with its impoverished countrymen in the new rainbow nation? And if a wrong has been committed should the perpetrator be punished or co-opted in the new power dispensation?
To this writer it appears that the behaviour of BCCI, if Mr. Greig's thesis is correct, is entirely consistent with the historical behaviour of dominant powers. Is that the right way for the BCCI to behave? This will need an investigation of BCCI's position on the issues which Mr. Greig claims that it is using its muscle power to stop 'progress' in the cricketing world. I am not privy to all contentious matters in world cricket, but on the Decision Review System (DRS) where the BCCI and Indian cricketers have been portrayed as Luddites there is more than a case for the Indian position.
The Indians have consistently opposed the DRS especially on its predictive ability for an LBW decision and they have a point which technophiles ignore to their own peril. In the modern system of justice for a man to be convicted of a crime the prosecution must prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the accused actually committed the crime. In recent judicial cases here in the UK, original verdicts have been overturned because the expert testimony used to convict the accused was found to be of dubious quality. Hence the Indian position on an LBW decision appears to be valid, for it questions the validity of replacing the opinion of an umpire with the opinion of an expensive piece of technology.
Therefore Mr. Greig is not right, at least in the case of the DRS, when he argues that India is abusing its position and in the process preventing cricket from progressing. Of course there maybe racial undertones, schadenfreude and power politics that govern relations between the ICC members. But for India to behave like Mandela, which Mr. Greig advocates, the ICC will need its own Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Until then hegemonic power plays, I predict, will continue.
