Will the real ICC please stand up?

Sometimes one can almost sympathize with the ICC - that Cricket's governing body has to find time to investigate 'possible murders' is strange. Last year it was Bob Woolmer's death under mysterious circumstances during the Word Cup in the West Indies. Now it is a Fiji cricketer found in a pool of blood during the recently concluded Division 4 World Cricket League.

But shouldn't the ICC hand over the investigation to the police and instead focus its attention on managing cricket, and try and do a good job of it? Strange are the range of activities which keep the ICC officials busy. President Morgan has ensured that the controversial 2006 Oval Test between Pakistan and England is back in news. Umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove had adjudicated the match in favour of England, after the Pakistan players didn't show up on the field for the post-tea session on the 4th day of the test, protesting against the umpires accusing them of ball-tampering during the match. Subsequently, the ICC had reversed this result and now Morgan wants this decision to be reversed.

That match is well overs 2 years into the past, and the ICC would have been best left getting over with and getting on along with the current set of problems, which aren't exactly minor in nature. At the rate at which Modi, Stanford and the rest of the T20 band are growing, on either side of the equator, Test Cricket may be dead sooner rather than later. In cricket crazy India, an India-Australia test last week was played in front of a largely empty stadium. England, who were reluctant playing too many ODIs until a few years back now don't mind flying all the way to Antigua to face Middlesex for the Stanford T20 Super Series. IPL has already strained relations between the India and Sri Lanka Cricket Boards. The other T20 major, Indian Cricket League (ICL) has weaned away a large chunk of the Bangladesh Cricket team. New Zealand players are already threatening to go the Bangladesh way - and if they haven't already it's not for the charm of playing Test Cricket, but the lure of the the IPL T20 lucre.

Cricket, as we have known and loved it, is under threat from inside - from another game, which is trying to pass itself off as cricket. It is time Morgan and his men wake up to this danger and direct all their resources and energies in the right direction, and save cricket from extinction.