India sabotage Asian Test Championship?

India's refusal to participate in the Asian Test Championship was not sensational news because most vigilant cricket observers had expected as much. But delaying such a decision when the first match was only a week away is unbecoming of a sports establishment of repute.

Reports suggest the most shocking aspect of the episode is that while efforts are being made to normalise political relations between the two countries, the decision to boycott the championship has been taken at the highest level of Indian government. One fails to understand how the top brass like Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Union Home Minister LK Advani and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh were swayed by a negative recommendation from the Sports Minister Uma Bharti.

Perhaps the sports minister was annoyed by the ACC's ultimatum that "if India did not confirm participation by August 23, the championship would go ahead without them." Considering that "India was being coerced for participating in the tournament and that the decision could not be forced upon the government," the minister seems to have made the ACC's stand a point of prestige. She obviously did not realise that such issues are dealt with logically and not emotionally. Fully endorsed by Pakistan, the ACC's stand that the tournament will go ahead without India was quite justified.

The deadline offered to India left only a week for the organisers to manage the show. How many more concessions did they desire?

The decision not to participate in the Asian Test Championship has made a farce of the Indian government's earlier stand that it has no objection to the Indian team's visit to Pakistan to participate in a 'multilateral' tournament. They perhaps do not realise that isolating the team from Asian cricket will not only cause deterioration of Indian cricket, but will also adversely affect the progress of the game in the region.

Commenting on the Indian team's performance, CricInfo's Anand Vasu says: "The Indian cricket team is up in the clouds one day and down in the dumps the next". A defeat in the first Test against Sri Lanka is the latest setback. There is a need for India to realise that such decisions can put cricket there on the path to ruination.

Apart from the question of India's participation, another issue may have hampered the smooth sailing of the tournament. While the gorgeous modern cricket stadium at Multan was all set to stage its inaugural Test between Pakistan and Bangladesh on August 29, the air was filled with suspense over Pakistan's protest at the appointment of John Reid as Match Referee.

For some of his decisions against Pakistan, John Reid the former New Zealand captain turned ICC Match Referee, is neither popular among the players nor among cricket fans in Pakistan. In 1999 he along with the two umpires was instrumental in initiating the chucking case against speedster Shoaib Akhtar, which put the bowler as well as the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in a lot of trouble.

A year later when the Pakistan team was touring Sri Lanka, Reid suspended Waqar Younis for one month and fined him 50 per cent of his match fee for alleged ball tampering. He followed it up with a fine and a warning to Azhar Mahmood on a similar charge. The action triggered a violent reaction against him in Pakistan.

It is surprising how the International Cricket Council (ICC) remained unaware of Pakistan's disenchantment with Reid and appointed him again to supervise an important tournament on its soil. The PCB's protest was quite genuine.

Reinforcing its policies that do not allow the member countries to veto the appointment of independent referees and umpires, the ICC has convinced PCB to accept John Reid as Referee for the whole tournament. As a gesture of goodwill, the PCB has offered to provide John Reid the same courtesies that are extended to all ICC officials visiting the country. Let us hope all goes well.

Though millions of cricket fans in Pakistan will be disappointed to not watch India in action on their soil, it is quite likely that Gaddafi Stadium Lahore will be chosen as the venue for finals of the tournament, most likely between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Expected to be an exciting contest, it would help a little to put the disappointment over India's absence behind the fence.