17 July 2014
The MCC’s World Cricket Committee has called for a new international cricket council head to fight against match-fixing. It said that this full time appointment will go long way in curbing the world-wide corruption in the game. This was one of the many recommendations made by the committee at their biannual meeting at Lord’s. MCC is the world’s most active cricket club, the owner of Lord’s Ground and the guardian of the Laws of the game. MCC stands for Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), the European Cricket Council (ECC). MCC owns Lord’s Cricket Ground, generally known as Lord’s, is a cricket venue in St John’s Wood, London. Lord’s is named after its founder, Thomas Lord.
World Cricket Committee (WCC), funded and administered by MCC, consisting of 14 former international cricketers and umpires, meets to discuss developments and issues in the game. It also regulates the rules of the game. The current panel of the World Cricket Committee includes former England captains Andrew Strauss, Michael Vaughan and Mike Brearley. Rahul Dravid, Shaun Pollock, and Kumar Sangakkara are also on the committee. England’s Charlotte Edwards is the only woman on the panel.
WCC called for the ICC member nations to address the issue of match fixing and to compile a database of all illegal approaches reported by players.
In July this year, Lou Vincent (New Zealand and Sussex) was banned for life and in June Naved Arif (Pakistan A and Sussex) was also banned for life. Mohammed Ashraful (Bangladesh) was banned for eight years in June this year, Danish Kaneria (Pakistan and Essex) was banned for life in June 2012. Mervyn Westfield (Essex) was banned, and jailed for four months, in 2012
The Committee also ruled unanimously that running out a non-striker is not illegal and does not contravene the ‘Spirit of Cricket’. This ruling was made in response to England captain Alastair Cook calling spinner Sachithra Senanayake’s run-out of Jos Buttler “a pretty poor act”. Following this complaint by Alastair Cook, Sachithra Senanayake was banned from bowling in international cricket. The committee defended the unusual mode of dismissal.
The committee also recommended that ICC should continue to crack down on illegal bowling actions, following the recent banning of Senanayake. The committee noted the inequality of the tournament revenues paid to ICC member nations (with England, Australia and India set to receive a larger proportion from 2016) as a matter of concern.
