Now the dust has settled…

…on the Twenty/20 quarterfinal that never was

England U15 captain, Azeem “Two doosras” Rafiq

It’s not a good time to work in sports administration. Not that there ever was a golden age for the men that push the pen, that organise the trophies, that fill the cabinet, that Jack (Nicholas) built. Even when the Victorians where busy codifying every athletic pursuit they could think off, it was still a thankless task. Baron de Coubertin apart, there aren’t many statues erected to the hard working men and women of sports various governing bodies. And forgive me if memory fails, but I can’t recall crowds flocking to Trafalgar Square in celebration of the new Premiership fixture list, or the change in uniform design for Wimbledon line judges.

No, theirs is a reflected glory at best. Earn your wage, enjoy the patronage of sponsors and try to stay in the background without cocking too many things up or saying anything particularly stupid.

But of late they’ve been excelling themselves at both.

Take your pick: Max Mosley’s hide the bratwurst schinanigans. Sepp Blatter’s inability to comprehend that a footballer’s swimming pool is larger than most slave ship ‘cargo holds’, or British athletics impotence in the face of Dwain Chambers dragging the Olympic spirit through every court in the land like an incontinent dog leaving a skid mark across your kitchen lino.

Everywhere you look, sport parading its obstinate folly for our delectation and delight. Yet somehow, in amongst all this, the clown prince at the cavalcade of incompetence remains cricket.

As for all the ineptitude shown by other governing bodies, it’s hard to imagine any of them overseeing the situation we had at Durham almost a fortnight ago. With two teams fit and ready to go, and the match covered on live television, the paying public, some of whom had travelled for hours, were allowed in to spend more money at the concession stalls before being told that, no, sorry, can you go home please, everything’s been cancelled. And the reason why? A teenage boy hadn’t signed his registration papers at the start of the season.

Except of course, that wasn’t the real reason, as Yorkshire later revealed the ECB were prepared to backdate the lad’s registration before they discovered he didn’t hold a valid British passport. Which is where the situation becomes so rich in irony it could give you heart burn. As in a twenty/20 competition awash with ‘qualified players’ from across the cricketing world, all assembled under the protective umbrella of employment law; the only player deemed ineligible has learnt his cricket in Yorkshire, captained the England U15 side and uses a Barnsley accent so thick he makes Darren Gough sound like Brian Sewell.

An’ this is mi’whippet, ‘Madame de Pompadour the third’, or ‘Elsie’ for short.

So now, nearly two weeks later, the saga has lurched on, with the only delay to further embarrassment caused by crickets ongoing indecision over which foot to shoot itself in.

The original farce, complete with disgruntled spectators traipsing home, broadcast for all to see in Sky High Definition, has now been compounded by a disciplinary hearing imposing a ridiculously over the top punishment on Yorkshire; before reducing it on appeal to a ‘lessor sanction’ that had exactly the same effect. You can take your pick as to whether you’re reminded more of Jarndyce and Jarndyce or Josef K.

None of which should obscure the fact that the initial error was indeed Yorkshire’s. It doesn’t matter if the paperwork required for registering a player is a single sheet or resembles the operating manual for a nuclear submarine. It’s the clubs responsibility to ensure the I’s are dotted and the T’s crossed and in this case they failed to fulfil that responsibility. Whilst it’s refreshing to hear a chief exec state that ‘the buck stops with me’, it’s more important that all counties take steps to ensure the same mistake is not repeated.

But the accelaration of what was a clerical oversight, into another opportunity to make cricket look amateurish and poorly organised has to be laid firmly at the door of the ECB. Their insistence that the game at Durham be cancelled, even after the scheduled start time had passed, defies all logic. If you believe the match may count for nothing you still play the fixture and argue its validity afterwards. As once the paying public has turned up, you are past the point of no return. No one that turns customers away at the door deserves to stay in business for long.

The root cause of all these problems remains, as always, money. Money that leaves the ECB scared of its own shadow. Money that leads to the unseemly sight of county chairmen pleading their sides case for advancement towards some vaguely defined 20/20 champions league pay day, even when deep down they know on-field performances have merited no such opportunity. Money that allows the barrack room lawyers that have always existed in sport to employ the real thing; and when lawyers arrive through the door, common sense so often disappears out of the window. If only it’d take some of the ECB with it.

Out of the whole sorry mess you have to cling to what little hope you can find. Hope that the underlying integrity of cricket is displayed by the dignified reaction of Derek Brewer, the Nottinghamshire chief exec, to his side’s replacement in the re-scheduled quarterfinal by Glamorgan. Hope, probably forlorn, that those spectators turned away from the original game get due compensation. But perhaps most of all, hope that Yorkshire can help Azeen Rafiq to quickly gain his British citizenship and get his career back on track. After all, it only took Zola Budd three weeks to qualify at a similar age. Of course, these days she’d be classed as a Kolpack and the process would be even quicker…

Si’thee later,

Len

~ by lentheyorkshirekitman on 19 July, 2008.