Pipe down, board officials to advise Indian cricketers

Avoid excessive appeals and pipe down if umpires negate your pleas on the cricket field.

This is the advice the cricket board is likely to give the Indian team as it returns from a disastrous tour of South Africa and prepares for a three-Test series against England that begins at Mohali, Punjab December 3.

A top official of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) admitted that the Indians had gone overboard while appealing during the South African series that India lost 0-1.

"We must tell them that they should cut it down a bit," said the official, who has been associated with the BCCI for over two decades. "We have been doing it too much."

India was to have played three Tests but the last game lost its official status over a row between the cricket boards of India and South Africa and the International Cricket Council (ICC) over the penalties imposed on sixIndian players after the second Test.

Match referee Mike Denness, who held the Indians guilty of excessive appealing, was sacked after he refused to hold the penalties in abeyance.

Other board officials too appeared reconciliatory, as the penalties have also cast their shadow over the Mohali Test.

At issue is the status of batsman Virender Sehwag. He had been banned from the third Test at Johannesburg but since that match was treated as an unofficial one, the question of his penalty hangs fire. The BCCI says Sehwag can play at Mohali since it does not regard the Johannesburg Test as being cancelled. The ICC maintains that Sehwag has yet to serve out the ban.

Meanwhile, BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya is believed to have climbed down substantially since he threatened to recall the team from South Africa in protest, even as some board members have cautioned that a direct confrontation with the ICC should be avoided. They say the Indian players were themselves responsible for inviting Denness' wrath.

The ongoing controversy has also forced some BCCI officials to take another look at the rulebook. So wary have they become that they are now going through the rulebook very carefully.

"You must also read it, particularly the section that deals with penalties, before the England series begins," a board official is reported to have advised a colleague.

Indian officials feel the longer the controversy lingers, the more hostile the cricketing world would turn towards India.

Also, there are few takers for Dalmiya's theory that the Johannesburg match, which India lost by an innings and 73 runs on Tuesday was an "official" game.

For one, umpires R.E. Koertzen and D.L. Orchard did not wear the official ICC tie during the game. Two, television commentators were divided on the status of the match. And three, the South African board, as also team captain Shaun Pollock, said the ICC should not restore the status of the match.

"For the ICC to give it retrospective Test status, as Dalmiya is demanding, would be a lie as well as a cop-out," Tim de Lisle, editor of wisden.com, one of the most respected commentators of the game, wrote.

To add insult to India's injuries, ICC has made it clear scores of the Johannesburg game would not be counted toward the World Test Championship, the ongoing competition between the 10-Test playing countries.

Even the individual performances during the game would not figure in the record books, the ICC ruled.

India's tour of South Africa : Complete coverage

--Indo-Asian News Service

Mail Cricket Editor