Delegates keep tight-lipped on ICC special meeting

By Ted Corbett

LONDON, MAY 2. When delegates arrived at Lord's today for the emergency meeting of the International Cricket Council they had already been told in no certain terms that they would be attending a talking shop, that their deliberations would be of no value and that the whole operation was a waste of time and space.

In other words, the cynical British media had written off the most important meeting in cricket history as an attempt to mollify those who thought ICC should take action.

The mess was graphically summed up by the former Pakistan captain Imran Khan who thought that the admissions of Hansie Cronje, the start point of all the allegations, might be a blessing in disguise since it would bring the rumours to the surface. ``Before the scandal broke, betting and match-fixing in cricket were considered mainly Pakistan's problem; now everyone knows that there are international ramifications,'' he said. ``The ICC should take the lead, mobilise the cricket boards behind them, explain that there is no harm in banning players found guilty of betting and match-fixing. If anyone remotely involved with match- fixing is removed it will restore credibility,'' Imran says.

David Lloyd, the former England coach, wrote ``I wonder when we can draw a line under this sorry mess'' and Ian Chappell, possibly the plainest talker of all, says ``cricket has faced some serious controversies in nearly 150 years of international competition, but nothing as perilous as the match-fixing crisis that is currently bringing the game into disrepute and threatens to leave it as nothing more than an ineffectual pastime.''

So they are all in agreement about the need for a strong solution which is probably why Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, went on the radio early in the morning to insist that ICC should show the way forward. ``If we do not,'' said MacLaurin, the only representative of the England and Wales Cricket Board, ``people will be asking if we are fit to lead.'' He thought the cancer of match-fixing might be rife throughout the game and it is hard to argue with that belief.

Matthew Fleming, chairman of the Professional Cricketers Association, added his weight to the remarks, making it clear that the average cricketer wanted nothing left under wraps. ``It must all be brought out into the open,'' said Fleming, who is also the Kent captain and, incidentally, a son of the banking firm that also claimed Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond adventures, as a relative. Perhaps cricket needs a Bond figure to solve its present crisis.

The delegates met and talked and went to lunch and met again; but not a word escaped to the waiting reporters nor to the general public. In fact they arranged to keep the world informed but long after the agreed time there was no word of their debate and even that friend of the media Dr. Ali Bacher, the human dynamo from South Africa, held a finger to his lips when asked how the meeting was going. With that level of secrecy it is clearly going to be difficult to get any information ahead of tomorrow's press conference, chaired by the ICC president Jagmohan Dalmiya.

Their first decision was to exclude Inderjit Singh Bindra, the former chairman of the Indian board, and to welcome Raj Singh Dungapore, who agreed to step into the place left vacant by Mr. A.C. Muttiah, who returned to India when he was informed of the death of his mother during his journey to the meeting.

There is one other problem for the delegates. Even before they walked through the Grace Gates, among the waiting photographers and TV cameramen, they must have realised that the leaked documents from the Pakistan Board of Control were likely to be given more mileage than the deliberations at Lord's.

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