Players have a right to be worried and a right to be consulted on security issues, without cricket officials giving them a “take it or leave it” ultimatum © AFP

The ICC should have seen this coming but has been deliberately and cussedly ostrich-like. A few weeks ago, I met a senior cricket official from a south Asian country and asked him if he foresaw problems ahead. After all, nothing had changed between the cancellation of the Australian tour of Pakistan in April and now. Pakistan was unlikely to experience a change in threat perceptions by the late summer. Would not the same logic and the same fear factor that drove away Andrew Symonds and Cricket Australia still hold true?

My question was waved aside with an “It’s all okay.” Now that the problem is beginning to emerge and be heard, the ICC is still insisting that Pakistan is perfectly safe and that the upcoming Asia Cup is an adequate dress rehearsal. Should the Australians and English think otherwise, be certain that somebody will conjure up the familiar “Asians versus Old Empire” argument and sundry Indian and Pakistani busybodies will go around making smug statements about how the West hates cricket’s new power equations.

This is not to suggest that the cricketers who don’t want to go to Pakistan are necessarily correct or even consistent. Yet, the fact is they have a right to be worried and a right to be consulted, without cricket officials giving them a “take it or leave it” ultimatum.

True, the Jaipur terror blasts did not affect the Indian Premier League. In July 2005, the Lord’s Test between Australia and England began exactly two weeks after the London bombings and there was never a suggestion of cancellation. Even so, there are two factors to be considered in case of the Champions’ Trophy.

First, while the whole world is threatened by terrorism, Jaipur and London were one-off incidents. Pakistan has been a battleground for the past few years, and the past seven or eight months have been particularly disturbing. In 2002, Australia moved a post-9/11 series in Pakistan to Sri Lanka and Sharjah, and the ICC nodded in agreement. It can be argued that the security situation in Pakistan has worsened in the past six years. Not that Pakistani cricket fans are to blame for this, but surely if cricketers are anxious they have a point.

Second, and this is a more damning indictment of the cricket establishment and its dogged refusal to realistically understand what motivates a sportsperson, nobody takes the Champions’ Trophy seriously. It is a meaningless, oversize tournament that is set for obsolescence, especially after the success of Twenty20.

If no Australian cricketer even considered going home from England in 2005, it was because an Ashes series was cherished as a personal landmark and a larger tradition not to be messed with. In the case of the IPL, the instinct was baser – the money was so good that nobody wanted to flee the bank. Noble aspirations and commercial impulses – so much of our lives is a mix of these two motivations, why shouldn’t it be so for cricketers?

The Champions’ Trophy is different. It is a crashing bore. The last edition became a television disaster after the Indians got knocked out, indicating that only mindless fanatics – the sort who follow their team’s scorecards during side matches in Zimbabwe – were interested.

While scheduling tournaments – in terms of frequency as well as geographical setting –cricket boards and the ICC must consult their players. If some players want to pick and choose, given an over-burdened cricket calendar and a host of other attendant parameters, they should be given that space. As societies, we need to stop treating cricketers as proxy soldiers.

Otherwise, private employers like the Indian Cricket League will seem more attractive and amenable. If my boss refuses to listen to me, I may settle for a less high-profile but reasonably paying job elsewhere.

By all means play the Champions’ Trophy in Pakistan – and may it go off smoothly and swimmingly – but don’t rubbish or penalise the players who express their doubts or don’t want to go. The ICC and its affiliates, sadly, have an HR policy devised for robots.

	Indian cricket is treating the South Africa series with the same “let’s get this over with” contempt © AFP

Only India could have done this. Just weeks after one of the most rivetting, pulsating and action-packed set of Test matches in history, India is one part – the bad, listless part – of a Test series that is turning out to be a “no contest”.

This is not to suggest there isn’t good cricket on offer. The South Africans are playing brilliantly and imperiously, looking – at least in April 2008 – the best team in the world. Their fast bowling has been impressive and made its presence felt even on the tombstone wicket in Chennai. As for Ahmedabad, any team that bowls out the other in 20 overs in the opening session of a Test match – however helpful the pitch and whatever the state of the opposition – deserves accolades.

As of now, the South Africans are running away with the series. Other than the bauble of Sehwag’s 300, the Indians have nothing to remember it for. They look jaded and tired; their minds are on the IPL carnival. They are not Test match fit – and this is not merely a reference to the physical condition of individual players.

Indeed, the entire Indian cricket structure – establishment, officialdom, fans, media – is treating this series as some sort of a walk-on role, an interlude between the sublime concert in Australia and the rock star frenzy that the IPL promises to be.

Frankly, only one side is treating this as Test cricket – hallowed tradition or hard sport, whatever it may be. That side is not India.

It’s a question of priorities. More than once, after a long series down under, we’ve heard visiting or Australian captains say that they’re too tired by the end of the endless ODI tri-series that climaxes the Australian season. It’s treated as a tiring and tiresome sideshow, after the main event – the Test series – is over.

Indian cricket is treating the South Africa series with the same “let’s get this over with” contempt. From next season, Cricket Australia is junking the tri-series altogether. What if some smart Indian official decides Test cricket is a waste of time? Indian cricket’s focus – commercial and political, given there’re simply more matches to hand out to allied state/city associations – is on ODIs.

With the T20 fever at the cusp of turning into an epidemic and with IPL about to explode on us, the calendar is going to be even more packed. It’s a myth that the IPL franchise teams will play a tournament in India for 44 days and simply disappear for the remaining 321 days of the year. Already there’s talk of an “IPL exhibition series” in England. As the franchisees seek to strengthen their brands and clubs identities, they will inevitably lobby for more cricket featuring IPL teams. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

What does all this mean? Test cricket will be pushed even further down the agenda. The BCCI will speak about how it treasures the longest game, but do nothing to preserve it. Short Test series will be fitted in between T20 razzmatazz and seven-eight game ODI series. South Africa is playing three Tests, later in 2008 England will come to India for only two.

Is there a way out? I have a five-point route map for preserving Test cricket while acknowledging it will have limited appeal in the years to come. Even so, serious film festivals co-exist with multiplex blockbusters. Similarly, Test cricket must be given its due amid a plethora of 20 and 50 over events.

So here’s my five-fold path:

1. The ICC should formally announce that all future expansion of cricket nations is going to be in the ODI and, more likely, T20 formats. China, the United States, Malawi, whatever, whoever may someday take part in the T20 World Cup but will never play Test cricket.

2. To ensure quality it would be a good idea, in fact, to reduce the number of Test teams. Bangladesh and Zimbabwe should be derecognised as Test teams. They can continue to play as many ODIs or T20 internationals as they want, even set up IPL franchise clones of their own

3. No Test series should be less than four matches long. Six Test match series went out with the 1980s, but four or five Tests would ensure a fair contest. That length would allow a team to recover from a sluggish start. Imagine a fourth or fifth Test against South Africa, with Zaheer Khan and R.P. Singh back with the new ball and Sachin Tendulkar back in the order ... A three (or two) Test series is a shame, even a travesty.

4. Test cricket should always be played in the host country’s core cricket season. For instance, India must play home Tests between November and February, not in April or May. Sri Lanka must not be forced to host Test series in rain-swept August only because it suits the visiting team’s travel schedule.

5. Since the number of ODI/T20/IPL/IPL-style fixtures is only going to grow (perhaps exponentially), what points 3 and 4 would suggest is that a Test team may be able to play only one or two series in a year. Test series will have to be spaced out, as they once were before a frenetic ICC Future Tours Progamme took over. Nevertheless, fewer Test series are worth the sacrifice provided they are longer and, almost by definition, more engaging.

Make Test matches collector’s items. Right now, the ICC and the BCCI are leading a movement toward commodifying Test cricket. It worked for ODIs and may do so for T20, but is the kiss of death for five-day cricket. That is the lesson from the ongoing India-South Africa encounter.

Just read a piece by Harsha Bhogle in today’s Indian Express on how the ICC’s more sinned against than sinning. Not sure I agree with that. In fact the way the ICC’s made a mess of international umpiring is a case in point.

The first thing an economy needs is infrastructure – before the booming factories, you need to get the power stations running and roads ready. Cricket’s equivalent, I suppose, is the paucity of top-level umpires. The ICC’s Elite panel is woefully small and overworked, leading to, most recently, Simon Taufel announcing he’s had enough.

How has the ICC tackled this? In a very ad hoc manner. At its Dubai meeting, I expected a discussion – if not a blueprint – on upgrading umpiring skills across member countries leading to, say a doubling to the Elite panel strength in 15 months or 18 months. Some discussion on using technology to aid umpires or even take over decision-making to some degree would also have helped.

It’s all very well to say umpires are intrinsic to the game and cricket needs the “human touch”. These are fine clichés for a Sunday afternoon game – not for a multi-million dollar, serious sporting enterprise. If umpires have to take recourse to technology and replays more and more, so be it.
They’re not the stars on the field, the players are.

As the biggest economy/stakeholder, the BCCI should be leading the discussion on the future of umpiring. With IPL and with a very busy international programme for its team(s), India needs top-quality umpiring and umpiring solutions more than anyone else.

What the ICC has come up with is woefully inadequate. I mean, either Darrell Hair and Steve Bucknor are good umpires or they’re not. Either they’re good enough for all teams or they’re not. I believe Bucknor is no more a top-grade umpire, which is why he should not be standing when England plays Australia or New Zealand plays Sri Lanka for that matter. The ICC can agree or disagree; it can’t half-agree. To keep Bucknor out of India’s matches and keep Hair away from Pakistan’s games sets a very bad precedent.