Richardson to mediate truce in Test series
ONE of cricket’s most mildmannered gentlemen has been called in to mediate peace talks between Virat Kohli and Steve Smith next week, after Australia pulled an extraordinary power play to put India back in its box.
Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland stood up to the BCCI’s schoolyard bullies in a late-night meeting in Mumbai and within two hours a report filed by India to the ICC charging Smith and Peter Handscomb with abusing the spirit of cricket was sensationally withdrawn.
During the Monkeygate fiasco of 2008, CA were accused by Australian players of going soft in representing their interests and pandering to the power of the BCCI, but Sutherland’s staunch defence of Smith’s integrity in the face of cheating allegations has rescued the game from another ugly international incident.
Now the man who once pulled Curtly Ambrose out of a fist fight with Steve Waugh – West Indian great Richie Richardson – will sit down with the two warring captains on Wednesday in Ranchi and try to restore law and order to a series that has gone completely off the rails.
The ICC’s embarrassing failure to take any action against Kohli, Smith and others out of the explosive second Test in Bangalore, has now virtually set Richardson up to fail in his role as match referee for the final two Tests.
Richardson is a fearless man with a strong moral compass, but to apply his fair standards he must now, mid- series, change the precedent for anarchy that’s already been set by the previous match referee Chris Broad, spelling a potential disaster for him and everyone involved.
“The BCCI will withdraw the complaint filed with the ICC with an expectation that the two captains will meet prior to the Ranchi Test and commit to lead their teams by example and play the rest of the series, demonstrating that the players from both teams are true ambassadors for their respective countries,” said the BCCI and Cricket Australia in a joint statement.
Richardson is the right man for the job, but due to the ICC’s reluctance to stand up to Indian posturing, he is on a hiding to nothing.
India’s decision to use lastresort powers to circumvent the authority of the ICC and charge Smith and Handscomb for breaching the spirit of cricket for their DRS “brain fade” typified the brazenness of their attack on Australia, which is being led by Kohli and coach Anil Kumble. Sutherland had the power to hit back and in turn charge Kohli with the same offence after he inferred Australia were systematic cheats.
However, the CA chief chose to take the moral high ground and the diplomacy worked.