"Harbhajan an 'obnoxious weed'". This headline of Cricinfo is a fine comment on the state of cricket. Dhoni's comment that cricket can never be friendly is equally sad. Dhoni has suggested that what the Australians do is an art form. They are in essence trying to take advantage of the of the ICC Code of Conduct - trying to provoke opposition players and get them into the referee's bad books. This transcript of a Mathew Hayden interview is worth a read.If you actually think about it, Dhoni's comment about cricket being less than friendly does not add up. Australia are not concerned with being friendly or unfriendly, they are concerned, in Dhoni's estimation with taking full advantage within the letter of the law and the playing conditions. If the playing conditions offered them a way of gaining the advantage over their opponents by being friendly, you can bet your last rupee that they would be very friendly on the field.
The recent round of tu tu main main is just plainly silly. "Unfriendly" is hardly how one would describe it. "Childish" would be more appropriate. Except that the persons involved are 36 and 27 years old respectively. That makes the whole exchange obnoxious.
The ICC continues to miss the point, with plaintive requests to both teams to behave properly. If the governing body which has the wordy Code of Conduct at its command is reduced to begging, what does that tell you? To be fair to the ICC though, they have been quite good about making changes to the way the Code of Conduct is enforced. Initially, the referee could bring charges at his own initiative and then make rulings on them after holding hearings. Thus he could act as both prosecutor and judge. Post Denness, the ICC took away the power of the referee to bring charges against players except in certain exceptional circumstances.
It appears that while this has reduced the inconsistency in refereeing decisions, it has not helped convey a sense of fairness to proceedings. This is because there has been an inconsistency from umpires and opposition teams in reporting transgressions. Thus the Symonds "catch" was not reported by the Sri Lankan cricket team and Symonds got away with it. This time around, in Ishant's case, the referee acknowledged that Ishant was provoked, but since the charge had been brought against him and not against Symonds, the referee could not charge Symonds. The same was the case in the Harbhajan Symonds affair (its funny how Symonds appears in all htese instances). In that case, Symonds himself acknowledged in the Hansen hearing that he was abusive towards Harbhajan Singh, but since there was no original charge against Symonds, the referee couldn't bring the charge against him.
So, the current system does not guarantee that the Code of Conduct is applied fairly, even if the referees make near perfect judgements based on the written Code every time. The time has come to review the referee system. ICC should either empower one member of each squad (may be the manager) to be prosecutor - to sit with the rule book and bring charges against opposition players. This will ensure that teams (and more importantly supporters of teams) are not left wondering about the fairness of it all. Alternatively, the ICC could appoint an independent third party prosecutor, just as they have appointed referees.
The best option though would be to do away with the match referee system, and put the onus on the home boards to ensure discipline. The current system isn't working, even though the referees by and large have been quite even handed and consistent.
In any event, some way has to be found to ensure that respectable cricket sites like Cricinfo do not find reason to put up ridiculous headlines like this one.