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The Rediff Profile /Malcolm Gray

Gray areas

Twentyfour hours ago, Malcolm Gray took over as chairman of the ICC. His term will be for two years -- unlike his predecessor Jagmohan Dalmiya, who reigned for three.

And that is not the only point of difference. Jagmohan Dalmiya took over at a time when the cricketing outlook was rosy; a time when anything was possible; when the game was poised to surge, and grow, in lands undreamt of earlier.

Gray takes over at a time when the game faces its gravest threat yet. Given that the power base has shifted to the sub-continent if only because that is where the sponsorship money is, it is in the sub-continent that interest levels are dropping dramatically. Recent television ratings indicate that interest levels for cricket, as last seen in the Asia Cup in Dhaka, are way down from a high of 10.28 in March-April, to an abysmal low of 0.28 during the Dhaka quadrangular. A phenomenon directly attributable to the ongoing match-fixing scandal, and the public perception that the respective boards, and more to the point the ICC, are either unwilling, or unable, to do anything to stem the rot.

Coping with the stigma of match-fixing, thus, will be the new ICC chairman's first, and biggest, headache. And his first hit in the nets has been something of a mixed bag. On the plus side, the ICC has finally, following the baseball pattern, appointed Paul Condon, former head of Britain's Metropolitan Police, to play global watchdog in the game's fight against corruption. On the debit side, after all the hype and hysteria, the Justice Quayyum report has been quietly passed on to the ICC's code of conduct commission -- a body characterises by complete inertia -- for 'action'.

If there is one area of brightness in an overwhelmingly gray scenario, it lies in the fact that Dalmiya, the outgoing ICC boss, has at the least done for the ICC what he does best -- make money. When he took over three years ago, the ICC accounts showed a credit of 10,000 pounds. When Dalmiya handed over the keys to the kingdom to Gray yesterday, the balance sheet reads a healthy 10 million plus.

Money, thus, will be the least of Gray's worries.

Gray was last seen in administrative action when he chaired the Australian Cricket Board between 1986-1989. And his chief claim to fame lies in his early initiatives to bring South Africa back into the cricketing fold.

It was just before the 1987 World Cup that the West Indies tabled a motion at the ICC executive that any player with South African connections -- which, incidentally, meant almost the entire England team of that time -- should be barred from international cricket.

As cricket headed for a confrontation, Gray stepped in as the voice of calm and reason. His negotiations ensured that the Windies motion remained in limbo, which in turn meant that the 1987 World Cup went ahead on schedule.

In 1989, South Africa upped the ante when Dr Ali Bacher pressed for a hearing at the ICC, to tout that country's claim to re-entry into the cricketing fold. A unanimous negative would at that point have dashed SA's hopes -- but in a climate where it was safer to sit on the fence, Gray went ahead and announced Australia's support.

Gray made it clear that he was, at that point, merely supporting South Africa's right to a hearing at the ICC counsels -- which did not automatically translate into approval for its re-entry into international cricketing circles. But even that qualified approval had its impact, helping to shift public perception towards a pro-South Africa stance.

Gray made an abortive bid for the chairmanship three years back, but was outgeneralled by Dalmiya, who managed to get the bulk of the associate nations on his side. At that point, Gray withdrew from the race, leaving the field to Dalmiya on the tacit understanding that it would be Australia's, and Gray's, turn next.

It is, now.

Three years ago, Gray probably had no inkling of what lay in store for him. He knows, now.

And to help him tackle it, he has none other than David Richards, the ICC chief executive who has worked with Gray earlier when the latter headed the ACB. Richards showed up as a bit of a bad joke with his defence of Jagmohan Dalmiya, during the last days of the latter's reign, in the television rights scandal. And has been keeping a low profile since.

Now Gray inherits the match-fixing scandal, the television rights scandal, and Richards. To most, that would seem like three strikes, going in to bat. It will be interesting, to say the least, how Gray copes.

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