KEY POINTS:
Trust the ICC to mail out a demand for good manners on international cricket fields while forgetting there is a sledger in their midst.
Trust them also to send this letter to the international captains and CEOs while New Zealand and England are playing a series in fine
spirit, even if the calibre of the cricket has sometimes been from a lesser arena.
Did the high and mighty really need to wag a finger while two average teams of above-average cricket behaviour were duelling with and for honour in Napier, cheered on by the most fabulous travelling circus in sport - England's Barmy Army?
Of course men who can take a World Cup to the free-spirited Caribbean yet price financially challenged fans out of the stadiums must have a poor grip on reality.
For sure, the ICC's letter declaring a zero-tolerance of sledging is perhaps a step in the right direction for cricket.
As this column has suggested in the past, the ICC could do worse than bring the captains and their deputies together in a conference that commits to establish a better spirit throughout the sport.
It is far easier to throw a letter in the bin, I would suggest, than to forget that you made a promise while looking another man in the eye.
As much as the recent series between Australia and India was a fabulous, engrossing and even history-changing contest, it also took cricket beyond the greys of what constitutes acceptable behaviour into a black zone of outrageous conduct.
Something has to be done when umpires are now allocated on the basis of personalities, when the vitriol in a series goes way beyond the normal meaning of monkey business, and one of cricket's superpowers readies its bags for an early return home in a display of deplorable brinkmanship. If the ICC's letter was addressed to "whom it may concern", then it should have been sent out by the truckload.
Yet while at least this missive addresses the subject of vicious sledging, it gets a lot more complicated once you try to create fine print to deal with the problem and its effects.
And the ICC's latest effort looks vaguely comical when you consider what has been hurled, unchallenged, out of their own backyard.
We must trust that this letter was not signed by the chairman of the ICC's cricket committee, the former Indian batting supremo Sunil Gavaskar.
No sooner had the letter's existence been revealed by an Indian newspaper yesterday than the name of Gavaskar rose to the surface, and with good reason.
Gavaskar's attack on match referee Mike Procter during the Australia-India series was a pox on cricket because he played the race card and undermined one of the very men on whom cricket relies to rein in loutish players.
Proctor's misconduct ruling against Harbhajan Singh deserved scrutiny, without doubt, because there was never solid, independent evidence against him. But for a high-ranking ICC official to suggest that he was racist was beyond the pale.
Gavaskar is apparently unrepentant and wormed his way out of it the way that players in all sports forever try to wheedle their way out of tight situations. "Is it because Mike Procter is a white man and he is taking the word of a white man and not Sachin Tendulkar? I haven't called him a racist at all," Gavaskar claimed, with a logic that if applied to his batting, would have seen him stationed at number 11.
Gavaskar, via his newspaper column, acted just like the handful of players who lost reason during the series. He deserved nothing less than a public rebuke from the ICC, and maybe even dismissal.
Yet his case lies in the too hard basket while other cricket leaders - including those who have no poor form at all - find a warning in their in-trays.
Those letters demanding good behaviour on the field will struggle for credibility while one of the greats of the game can sledge with impunity from cricket's halls of power.
In football, they call them coach killers. They are players who after repeated failures, and with the axe already on the way down, turn up with a top performance, are persevered with and continue to frustrate one and all. Arise Matthew Bell perhaps, although the manner of his soft dismissal at Napier yesterday means the axe should continue to fall.
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The death of Auckland cricket icon Merv Wallace was a reminder of times past. I was far too young to observe Wallace the cricketer, but the sports store he helped set up was a major part of life for a young sporting nut in the 1970s.
Wallace and Webb was THE Auckland sports store, a treasure chest of goodies in times of less sophisticated entertainment options. It was hallowed ground that ranked behind only Eden, Newmarket and Carlaw Parks. Wallace and Webb had an atmosphere all of its own. Happy hours were spent rummaging through the place, a few key purchases made, and now and then you might even see a famous sports star trying out some gear.
Maybe the memory has given the place an extra polish, but I think not. There are a few similar shops around now, I suppose, but this is the era of franchises and superstores. There will never be a sports store to rival Wallace and Webb.
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Sportsman of the week: Geoff Ogilvy. The Aussie golfer ousted Tiger Woods from the winner's circle in Florida and thank goodness for that. As Retief Goosen said, it was nice to see someone else lift a trophy. Woods was shooting for an eighth straight victory, and has not lost for nearly seven months. Incredible.
Defeat did not come softly. Woods managed an expletive-strewn tirade at the press after a "jackass" photographer clicked on his backswing, threatening to break someone's neck if it happened again. Charming.
And Woods was his usual magnanimous self in defeat, showering the victor with the following, hearty congratulations.
"I made too many mistakes this week, I had four three-putts, two terrible lies in bunkers and a photographer ... with all that, to make that many mistakes and only finish two back, I think that's a great sign."
Woods is beyond exceptional as a golfer, certainly not a terrible bloke, and he's got a point about the inconsiderate photographers. But he's also way too boorish to be an interesting star.
