Jan 23 2009
Nothing Official About The ICC
Well, the latest all time list of bowlers and batsmen in the ICC’s ratings has bought up a lot of criticism among most of the followers of cricket all over the world. This topic, I thought that wasn’t something so serious that I need to blog about. But, the emails that I received over the past few days were otherwise. They desperately wanted me to throw my voice as a cricket blogger on the issue whatsoever. But, frankly speaking, the issue never seemed to bother me, as this was just an opinion that the ICC had and has henceforth been criticised by one and all. And me doing the same would hardly play any role.
However, after going through the mails that I got, even I started to think as to what made the International Cricket Council (ICC) to make such decisions? What on earth forced the ICC to rate someone like Sachin Tendulkar below par as compared to someone like Mathew Hayden, Mike Hussey and others who never come into the scene when it comes to the cricketing world’s all time best batsmen. But, one thing is for sure. There must be something that must have provoked the ICC to give such nasty ratings. It would have been much better had the ICC not gone in for rating any players-be it batsmen or the bowlers.
Is the ICC trying to grab some undue attraction for the world, who after going through these ratings start blasting the same? Or does the ICC want the cricket surfers to scroll their mouse on the ICC website? This is as good as the umpiring decisions in the famous Sydney test 2008 which all of us are aware of. And some foolish ICC rules that merely hiked the spirit of the game, like the introduction of a super sub and the introduction of a free hit following a no ball. Now, the ICC is deciding about conducting day-night tests and also experimenting of using coloured ball too.With these foolish plans under the ICC’s to-be-done list, can the ICC’s all time ratings be something different?
Anyway, this is not the issue concerning only the ICC. Even in the IPL auction that took place a year ago, the way the players were bid had nothing to do with the caliber of the player. If that had been the case, someone like Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne should have been the highest bid as compared to Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Jaques Kallis. Similarly, Muttiah Muralitharan should have been the bid for a greater price than someone like Yousuf Pathan. And Rahul Dravid who had been the icon player should have been bid for a throw away price taking into consideration his T20 capabilities.When none of us had any questions regarding the IPL auctions, why such partiality towards the ICC all time ratings. Hah?
