BOMBAY, 11 October — There apparently has been more of a whitewash than any tangible settlement of an issue that had brought the International Cricket Council on a collision course with various countries‚ boards and their players.
The controversial Players‚ Terms Agreement and the Participation Contract, issued by the ICC just about a month before the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka, had caused such widespread heart-burning amongst the players that it had put the Mini-World Cup in jeopardy. In the end some hurriedly-arrived at patch-up formula rescued both the ICC and the tournament itself. But the peace that was reached remained too uneasy.
Being somewhat wiser after facing various forms of confrontation, the ICC had a two-day meeting in Colombo, after the tournament, and the members generally agreed to iron out all differences before the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
With just four months to go for the World Cup, things, however, do not look all that rosy. Fears are already being expressed that a similar situation that had occurred before the Colombo tournament, might resurface again at the time of the world’s biggest event.
Hectic sessions of negotiation have been planned by the ICC. But the crux of the problem is that a body, which purports to speak in one voice for the cricketers and calling itself the Federation of Cricketers Associations (FICA), has not been recognized by the ICC.
The main reason for this is that five countries, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Bangladesh, have made it clear that they would have nothing whatsoever to do with FICA. The players of these five countries believe that FICA is just keen on representing the interests of Australian and English players and just does not want to study the peculiar problems faced by the Asian countries and South Africa, which has now completely shaken off the control of the white regime.
The differences between the all-white countries and others were further accentuated when FICA just remained aloof as the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) of the ICC unnecessary created an impression that Pakistan were under suspicion for match-fixing in their very first game against Sri Lanka. The manner in which video-tapes were requisitioned, without any official statement of its necessity, did create such an impression. It was only much later that ICC said that the exercise was just routine.
