Rules for all, but not for the big three
● There are some things you don’t say unless you want to start a fight. They involve mothers and sisters and wives, and Virat Kohli’s repertoire of these choice words is far more varied than anything David Warner could come up with.
Cricket matches have never been genteel, but never have they been so feral. Maybe that’s why Virat Kohli feels free to swear with impunity on the field. Even amateur, English-speaking lip readers are in no doubt about what he says — so often that it has become his mantra.
Despite provisions in the code of conduct against swearing, maybe Kohli knows he will get away with it because he captains a team of untouchables.
India, along with England and Australia, are part of cricket’s big three. But there is only one BIG one. Without India cricket wouldn’t be as lucrative. And the golden child of the goose that lays the golden eggs is Kohli. So he can pretty much do as he likes.
But Kohli’s potty mouth going unpunished is as nothing compared to the disparity between the reactions of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Cricket Australia (CA) to the ball-tampering scandal that has reduced Steve Smith and Darren Lehmann to tears and cost them along with David Warner and Cameron Bancroft their jobs.
The ICC fined Smith his entire match fee for the Newlands test and banned him for the Wanderers test. Bancroft lost three-quarters of his match fee and was handed three demerit points, not quite a ban.
Warner and Lehmann weren’t charged. CA banned Smith for a year and will not put him in a leadership position in the national team for another year, and suspended Bancroft for nine months.
Warner, who is also out for a year, will never again be Australia’s vice-captain.
Lehmann, citing Smith’s televised breakdown on his return to Sydney, resigned, saying the Wanderers test would be the last of his five-year tenure as coach.
At least one prominent cricketer concurred with the theory that players who were not Indian, English or Australian got a raw disciplinary deal from the ICC.
“I’ve been talking about that for quite a while and I don’t think that it’s wrong to say that all I’ve been asking for is consistency,” Faf du Plessis said.
“This is very strong what happened here, but I do believe that before this series there were a lot of questions from us as a team and me as a captain that with the conversations that were happening with us and the communication from their side, you don’t feel that the same communication happens to certain players and teams around the world.
“I stress that every time I get an opportunity with the match referees or umpires, that all I’m asking for is that teams get measured in the same way.”
Had CA outdone the ICC in acting so strongly? “They’ve shown that they have. That’s probably why the ICC is relooking it.”
Minutes before Du Plessis spoke, the ICC announced that it had “commissioned a wide-ranging review into player behaviour, the spirit in which the game is played and the code of conduct” with the aim of “contemporising the standards expected of player behaviour and developing a culture of respect”.
ICC chief executive Dave Richardson, who will lead the review, got his retaliation in first to Du Plessi’s charge.
“The match officials work within the framework of the current ICC code of conduct and sanctions are applied according to that,” a release quoted Richardson as saying. “To go outside of this current framework would be to disregard the rules.”
The rules, then, are the problem. Or is it how they are enforced?
As things stand, three each of India’s and England’s players and five of Australia’s have demerit points — totals of seven, four and seven points respectively.
New Zealand? None.
South Africa? Nine players, 16 points. Something is wrong with that picture.
All I’m asking is that teams get measured in the same way Faf du Plessis Proteas captain