Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Prem Panicker

Approximately 48 hours ago, the International Cricket Council in an official statement, widely disseminated to all sections of the media, said inter alia: "It is also important to understand that Mike Denness did not make these decisions in isolation: with the exception of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, the other four players were reported by the umpires, one a South African, the other a Zimbabwean."

It was a very important statement. The Indian grievance has been that five players were docked for crimes ranging from excessive appealing, through intimidating the umpire, but that the umpires on the field never actually saw anything wrong, never spoke to the players, never warned them. And that, therefore, match referee Mike Denness was way off base in taking the action he did.

And then came the ICC statement. And we all know what an official statement means -- it means that the statement has been vetted and approved by chairman Malcolm Gray.

The statement told us that the umpires had in fact complained about Deep Dasgupta, Harbhajan Singh, Virendra Sehwag et al -- and that in turn meant that we were not justified in being outraged over the punishments.

Today, however, the story does a back flip. In an interview to the Times of India , United Cricket Board of South Africa Chief Executive Gerald Majola says, and we quote: "I spoke to (Mike) Denness after that and said if Sachin Tendulkar was tampering with the ball, the South African innings was only 19 overs old and he could have an inspection of the ball through the umpires. Why do it after the end of day's play when 75 or more overs have been bowled and you can't tell if the ball was really tampered."

"I spoke to the two umpires as well and they said they didn't find anything to report. They didn't even warn anyone. Even a few of our guys went overboard but there was no action taken against them."

"I said all this to Denness but he said he knew his job and all that," Majola said.

Never mind the bit about Tendulkar -- we all know just how funny that particular part is. Never mind, too, that bit where Majola says his own players had gone over the top and no action was taken -- we know that this is not an exception, but a norm, in international cricket, that some teams get away and others get it in the neck.

Focus, instead, on the most crucial part of Majola's statement: "I spoke to the two umpires as well, and they said they didn't find anything to report."

Majola says that the two umpires did not find anything to report. On November 19, in the immediate aftermath of the Mike Denness incident, the umpires told various sections of the media that they had seen nothing to take note of and act against.

And yet the ICC, in an official statement -- and that means Malcolm Gray -- says the two umpires actually filed a report.

It raises a question -- who is lying, and why?

The ICC can resolve this question by the simple expedient of producing the umpires' report.

Can it? If it fails to, we will all know what to think. And even as we think those thoughts, the credibility of the ICC -- whatever exists, that is, of that commodity -- will go down another few notches.

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