International Cricket Council president Malcolm Gray will retire at the end of the month after an eventful two-year stint which saw him admirably counter the stiffest of challenges facing the game.
Under his governance, the ICC, following the baseball pattern, appointed Paul Condon to play global watchdog in the game's fight against corruption. The former head of Britain's Metropolitan Police helped resuscitate fresh interest in the game after interest levels dropped dramatically following the match-fixing scandal.
As Gray nears the end of his stint at the helm of the ICC there are still a lot of issues unresolved. The chucking and sledging controversies are hogging the limelight and the Contracts row is still to be settled. In an interview with Faisal Shariff, Gray reflects on his tenure in office.
Mr. Gray, this is your last month as ICC chief. How has your stint been?
Well, exciting! At times interesting, at times wonderful, and at times difficult.
When you say difficult, even as you leave there are lot of issues that are still unresolved, like the chucking incident and sledging, which the ICC has made a statement about recently. What do you think about that?
I don't think that's necessarily the right choice of words. They are not issues unresolved. They just happen to be current issues, those sort of issues will always be cropping up. If you resolve one issue another one emerges.
Are you happy with the way the sledging by the Australians has been handled? Is there a solution to it, or when you say it's just an issue that's cropped up, why hasn't it been resolved or why is there no procedure?
I am not happy with sledging by the Australians, the Indians, or any other team. I don't really believe that it is necessary in our sport. It doesn't happen in the vast majority of sports; there does seem to be a culture prevalent within cricket and I believe that culture can and should change. As to the particular incident you are talking about, we have commented on that and at the moment there is not intended to be any further action. There should be something done about sledging by all of the teams. Sledging to an excessive extent is not warranted and should not occur.
But doesn't Australia get away scot-free?
No. You keep trying to particularize on one country and you are almost suggesting that for some reason one country is treated differently from any other. That is completely and utterly wrong. All the countries are treated the same.
You are not accurate and also I am not going to start to get involved in giving you a list of which country is first, second, third and fourth in sledging and start a table on the various countries. You are not accurate in regard to the disciplinary action by the ICC. Only in recent months the ICC took strong action against an Australian player, [Darren] Lehmann and left him out for several matches.
Are you satisfied with the way the Jermaine Lawson chucking episode was handled by the ICC?
Yes. I think that the processes that are now in place are probably the best so far, and I think they are the appropriate ones. Over the recent years we had attempts at three different processes and none of them worked, including, at one stage, the then current ICC president, in my view, quite wrongly interfered and made a decree that was opposed to what the process was in regard to Shoaib Akhtar.
I think the processes that are now in place, although they are rather lengthy and complicated, are the best processes that we can device. Of course, I am not happy with the whole matter of illegal deliveries; I think there is a problem. When you go back to grass roots, people with suspect action shouldn't rise to international cricket. It is understandable as to what happens to the youngsters in the team that they are playing in -- whether it is their school team or their local team -- if they are good and take wickets nobody ever likes to believe they ever have a suspect action. If they have a bit of suspect action nobody likes to take action and push them up to the next level of cricket. And again, the administrators there tend to protect their people. Even when you get into international teams, if they have been very successful, their national administrators don't like taking action because it affects the results of the team. So it's more than just what is the process of the ICC to deal with a man at the international level.
The laws of chucking aren't very clear. Do you think there is a need to relook at the laws and state them more clearly?
No, I don't think so. I think that's a simplistic approach in that what is and what is not chucking. It's extraordinarily hard to discern and also extraordinarily hard to define, and the laws have been and are constantly looked at. It's not just a simple matter, like 'Oh let's have another look at it' and quickly say in three lines and 27 words that is what chucking is or it's not. That is an impossibility to perform, so I don't think that's the solution.
But a 10-degree bend in the arm is allowed according to the ICC rules.
It's not upto me. I, as the president of the ICC, it's not upto me to make comments or rules or statements about particular technical issues.
The elite panel of umpires has also been in the news for some glaring errors. How do you rate their performances?
Again, it's not upto the presidents, whether they are ICC presidents or presidents of the national boards to be making comments about individual umpiring performances. The performances of all umpires are closely and constantly monitored. There is constant and regular meeting with the umpires and referees and, in other words, with the regular three officials, and I believe that despite the often criticism and arguments or debates over umpires' decisions you got to remember that umpires today are making more right decisions; correct decisions than they ever have. Unfortunately, they are also making the more wrong decisions. There is just a lot lot lot cricket played... they can argue too much cricket being played and, therefore, obviously when they do make a mistake, particularly with television today, it's going to be highlighted.
During the recently-concluded World Cup, Australian umpire Darryl Harper and match referee Gundappa Vishwanath were not given tickets to the finals. There is a lot of dissent amongst the umpires about the way the ICC handles them?
I don't believe your accusations are correct. I believe that the ICC umpires are well and truly treated. You mentioned the World Cup... in those matters, in terms of detailed logistics, that was matter for the South African World Cup committee, but, generally, I think that the administration of the umpires was excellent.
What would you say have been your achievements as president of the ICC?
I think, or I would hope, that the administration of the ICC in the game has moved forward. I think my humble view of that is, that it has. I think we have moved forward probably three steps, but then have also gone back one step. I think that the ICC management is by far the best it's ever had. We have put in a very good chief executive. So long as other people don't meddle, which they want to, the directors should allow the chief executives to get on with their management team and manage the game. I think it's reasonable to say that things are better off. I also believe that you got to look at the corruption issue over the last three years. Three years ago the game was virtually on its knees because of the corruption issue, whereas now, although it is still going to always be present in the game, gambling will always be present so as long as money is there. I believe that we do have that issue under control. I think that is an enormous turn over from what it was three years ago.
What is the latest development on the tussle between the ICC and the Indian board?
You know it's not just the BCCI. You keep coming back; I know you are an Indian. You keep coming back to India all the time, particularizing countries. The ICC is an international body that deals with all countries equally. The matter of the contract, commercial problems emanating out of the World Cup, is being dealt with, and nearly all other countries are involved. It's not India; it's Australia, it's Sri Lanka, it's England over the Zimbabwe affair; New Zealand over the match in Kenya etc. All of those matters are being dealt with. There was a meeting held two weeks ago in the West Indies with Global Cricket Corporation over the matter, but it is a complicated, very financial and legalistic matter that will take many months to work through.
