The ICC being the emperor, the BCCI, the Indian cricket team and the cricket authority of Australia being the adoring public, the Australian cricket team completely disrobing the ICC in front of everyone’s eyes, the ICC code of conduct rules being the invisible robe the emperor is supposed to wear and the spectators and the media being the kid who cries “The emperor is naked”, only here the emperor is deaf and senile in addition to being naked.

All and sundry know that the ICC appointed umpires are incompetent and there is a strong case to be made by a few teams that umpiring is biased. The merits and non – merits for the case of bias are subjective and lets leave it at that, since there will never be an unanimous agreement regarding that.

What everyone does know that the umpiring standards, the technical aid available to umpires and last but not the least the umpires themselves need a whole scale overhaul.

There are two ugly issues that were thrown into the limelight from the Sydney cricket test, one being the umpiring debacle and the other which is far more serious banning a cricketer based on racism.

All the visiting teams have over the ages have constantly complained about the umpiring standards in Australia. ICC has consistently ignored this complaint and never addressed in an open and transparent way that would put to rest this issue; instead every year a meaningless statistic of 93% of the decisions that were made are correct is bandied about, without providing any context.

ICC has a long list of inconsistent decision making when it comes to applying the ICC code of conduct for the players. The lack of transparency only makes these inconsistent decisions seem like a psychic pulling out a tarot card and rambling on rather than any logic or precedence behind it.

Step 1 - Code of conduct document

Next the code of conduct itself, needs an overhaul, lets try to deconstruct from a layman’s view the contentious rules in the ICC Code of conduct handout.

Level 1 offense
• Using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or insulting.
Offensive or insulting to the players, ICC, the umpires, the spectators? Each country in the ICC has different standards for offensive and insulting language and gestures.
• Abuse of equipment clothing, or any part of the ground.
Definition of abuse is severely lacking.
• Showing dissent at an umpire's decision by word or by action.
The definition of dissent is certainly lacking.
• Excessive appealing.
The definition of the term “Excessive” is lacking, is it excessive if one appeal is held on for more than 1 minute or does excessive mean appealing every other delivery?
Level 2 offense
• Showing serious dissent at an umpire's decision by word or action.
The level 1 term “Dissent” has not been defined hence serious dissent can mean anything or cannot mean anything
• Public criticism of a match related incident or match official.
Definition of criticism is very badly lacking, does ICC mean that the results should not be discussed in public? Will Andy Symmonds be pulled over for breaking this rule since he stated that “ He was out” and not given, that definitely is a public criticism of a match official.
• Inappropriate and deliberate physical contact between players during play.
Inappropriate and deliberate need to be defined

• Deliberate distraction or obstruction on the field.
Distraction or obstruction on the field needs to be defined, distraction to who and why.
• Using language or a gesture that is obscene, offensive or of a seriously insulting nature to another player, umpire, referee, team official or spectator.
This is complete poppycock, since level 1 offense is so badly defined adding “seriously” does not make it any more of a stronger rule.

Level 3
• Using language or gestures that offends race, religion, color, descent or national or ethnic origin.
To even attempt to understand this rule and implement in a fair and just manner is completely impossible. For example if you ridicule the religion of humanitarian secularists is it considered to be an offense or scientology?

It beggars belief that ICC the head of the international cricket has a code of conduct a third grade student will find loopholes in.

Malcolm Speed is supposedly a barrister before his current avatar as the CEO of ICC, it is incredulous to imagine he does not know the loopholes in these rules or he does not care.

Now that all the problems are identified, let us try to address the issues at hand constructively.

Step 2 – Revamp ICC
The ICC as it stands today should be dismantled. Ex – players who have the sufficient skills to govern ICC need to be identified and hired as the administrators of ICC. A top notch legal team needs to be hired to redraft the code of conduct document from its current apathetic state. A suggested listing of players who could serve as the games administrators are provided below

Australia – Mark Taylor, Ian Chappell.
Bangladesh – NA
England – Mike Atherton, Nasser Hussain
India – Sunil Gavaskar, Sidhu
Pakistan – Imran Khan, Wasim Akram.
South Africa – Kepler Wessels, Barry Richards
Srilanka – Ranatunga, Mahanama
West Indies – Clive Lloyds, Richards.

Bi annually each Board can propose its candidates and the players the first XI of each team vote for its administrators. Additionally, a top notch legal team, a PR team and a business team could be hired as consultants to administer ICC’s daily activities.

Step 3 – Revamping of umpires and standards

The following section suggests a series of steps to upgrade umpiring performance and how to keep the umpires rating transparent to the fans

Age limit
An Age limit on the umpires, every spectator knows that umpiring is a demanding job which also requires keen vision and auditory capabilities. It is a proven medical fact that as people age they lose control of their faculties. Why is the ICC not adding 2 and 2 together to come up with 4?

Umpire Rating
Umpires are rated by an independent council after each series, the independent council should consist of members of the countries which are not involved in the current ongoing series. Depending on this review umpires contracts are either renewed or discarded for the next series, the spectators do not want yearly reviews. Just like how each player is judged on each single series umpires should be too.

Aid of technology
Umpires should be provided with as much technological assistance as possible.

Rights for third umpires
Third umpire and the match refree should have the right to over turn any decision made by the on field umpire if they deem it right.

Media obligations

At the end of each days play, the umpire would be required to explain any decision with visual proof if necessary to journalists just like the captains required to attend media sessions.

There are only a number of times we can shout “The emperor is naked”, if the emperor doesn’t want to get dressed it is our prerogative to change the emperor and not worry about his clothes anymore.

The players, the ICC and the sport of cricket itself owes its gratitude to its fans, and if the fans are not satisfied with the product, the fans don’t lose anything it is the sport itself that would lose.

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