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CRICKET ROADSHOWS
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Week 3 Review - 26 May, Hove
Nicholas calls for ICC overhaul |
Channel 4 presenter Mark Nicholas has called for a review of the ICC in light of the Sir Paul Condon report into match-fixing.
Nicholas spoke out on Saturday's Cricket Roadshow, broadcast live from Sussex's ground in Hove, as he and former South African coach Bob Woolmer discussed the current crisis.
"There is a feeling from members of the ICC that it takes us nowhere and that the game could be haunted by match-fixing for evermore now that Condon has been able to nail nothing down," said Nicholas.
"But if no-one will talk to anyone that's investigating it, if nobody will come out and stand on their own two feet how will we ever expose it?"
Woolmer concurred, citing the now disgraced ex-Proteas captain Hansie Cronje as the only player who had spoken out.
"I was very disappointed. I wanted to see named names, see paper trails, see who has been fixing what and where."
Nicholas said he sympathized with the ICC's predicament, but in a stinging attack on their seeming impotence concluded that something had to change now if the game wanted to clean up its act.
"I didn't feel that the Condon report was as weak as some other people have. I myself felt that it's impossible to expose people who refuse to comment. And if nobody is prepared to give any ground away then it'll be very hard. What I would do is take it a stage further and look closer look at the ICC. I cannot believe that the ICC has got itself right."
His solution was to revamp cricket's governing body to counter claims of conflicting interest and lack of determination to weed out the offenders.
"I think we should have people from outside the ICC running the game. Great former players. The Richie Benauds, the Allan Borders, the Sunil Gavaskars, the Imran Khans.
"They should be the people running the game because they would be able to do so from an objective angle.
"It seems to me that within the ICC at the moment things are too personal, too tight, no-one will talk to us about the biggest report that's come out of the game. The fact is that at the moment the ICC aren't showing the leadership that they ought to."
Elsewhere on the programme Australian umpire Darrell Hair, who officiated in the Lord's Test last week, gave a qualified thumbs up to Hawk-Eye, C4's latest technological advance to help clarify LBW decisions.
"It seems to me like it's fairly accurate," said Hair, before adding: "Having seen what I've seen now it should be a great asset as far as training umpires is concerned because we can now show what we really mean by missing leg stump or going to high. I think it's got a lot of potential."
Mail the Cricket Show team at cricketshow@cricket4.com
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