Trophy spat reflects lack of forethought by the ICC

AS A generally successful English season draws to its close, even though the prospect of this winter's visit to Australia has introduced a healthy dose of reality and a rather different perspective, international cricket is still in its more or less permanent state of turmoil and causing much huffing and puffing in the corridors of power.

Cricket and its administrators have a genius for not foreseeing problems likely to arise in the future. The International Cricket Council expects the players involved in next month's ICC Trophy in Sri Lanka to sign a contract which would cut across than own individual sponsorship arrangements. The sponsors of the ICC Trophy are Pepsi-Cola, Hero Honda, South African Airlines and LG Electronics.

Six of the Indians including their main draw card, Sachin Tendulkar, and their captain., Sourav Ganguly, and four others, have private agreements with Samsung, which competes head to head with LG Electronics. Malcolm Speed, the chief executive of the ICC, has said, somewhat dictatorially, that players should have been aware of a precedent which was established in the World Cup in England in 1999.

Although there is no financial cross-fertilisation as far as English and Australian players are concerned, they are standing shoulder to shoulder with the Indians over a matter of principle. Surely a few quiet chats, a little bit of give and take and less feudal thumping of the table could have averted this unnecessary eleventh-hour crisis. Cricket never learns.

The 17-year-old Indian wicketkeeper, Parthiv Patel was dealt with a trifle patronisingly after his splendid Test at Trent Bridge. Behind the stumps, he moves well, the ball melts into his gloves and he did a grand job. If any further endorsement was needed, it came on the last day when he must have become the youngest man to save a Test match. He batted with guts and maturity for an hour and a half on an evening which will not, at close quarters, have been epithet-free. I wish he was English.

The test-playing countries in Asia continue to flex their muscles at the behest, it would surely be reasonable to assume, of a former chairman of the ICC, India's Jagmohan Dalmiya. He appears to have set himself to wrench control of the game away from Lord's and to settle it, ideally, in the teeming streets of Calcutta.

Australia's refusal to visit Pakistan for their forthcoming Test series will have been grist to his mill; the increasing likelihood of Australia and England refusing to visit Zimbabwe in the World Cup in the New Year will also have put a smile on his face. India and Pakistan have, at once, let it be known that they are eager to take their chance within Robert Mugabe's borders.

Of course, the ridiculous decision to give Bangladesh Test status years before they were ready for it was all part of the plan to bring the control of the game to the subcontinent. But as far as Dalmiya and those of like mind are concerned, there is one huge, hideous and spectacular fly in the ointment that is unlikely ever to fly away.

That buzzing creature is Kashmir and while India and Pakistan do rather more than flex their muscles over this beautiful part of the world, the chances of their respective governments agreeing to allow hostilities to resume on the cricket field are remote. Until India and Pakistan can put their differences aside Asian supremacy will, happily, be no more than a pipe dream for Calcutta's most fractious tycoon.

WE ARE fast approaching the time of year where match-fixing and similar skulduggery is back on the agenda. Lord Condon, mercifully, has been quiet for a while, after telling us that this particular evil is as extinct as the dinosaur. The South African bookmaking fraternity shrieked with laughter at this and even now cricket's Jurassic Park is surely only just round the corner – except this one is the real thing.

After the unfortunate death of Hansie Cronje, the South Africans have got out their besoms and swept every speck of wrong-doing under the enormous carpet of the veld. Rumour has it that the organiser of South Africa's World Cup and éminence grise of their cricket, Dr Ali Bacher, had been planning publicly to absolve Cronje of all blame in these matters during the competition. Memories have a convenient way of growing shorter and shorter.

While england's fast bowlers and their endless injuries take the headlines, there is a wonderful finish going on in that hugely worthwhile but sadly underrated competition: the Minor Counties Championship. The last round of matches began yesterday and there are four counties who could win the Eastern Division and be rewarded with a visit to Exmouth to take on Peter Roebuck's Devonians a fortnight hence in the final.

Norfolk, particular favourites of this column, lead the Eastern Division by 11 points and their main rivals are none other than Suffolk, their nearest neighbours. While Suffolk entertain Buckinghamshire, a modest side at present, at Mildenhall, Norfolk have made the journey to Jesmond to do battle with Northumberland, their bogey team in recent years. Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire are also in with a shout if rain or whatever prevents either part of the East Anglian bulge from doing the business.