Bedi genuflects before Murali

Bishen Singh Bedi that beauty of a left arm Indian spin bowler, who attempted to bowl out Sri Lanka's off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan through bat and pad, got cold feet and chickened out when Muralitharan threatened legal action.

Being the cricketer that he was, Bedi should have faced the action. That is what is expected of a sportsman. But Bedi who had the guts to lash out and label Muralitharan a monster and a shot putter, threw in the towel as it is in sporting parlance and surrendered like a lamb.

Muralitharan's legal team is led by President's counselRomesh de Silva. Bedi realising that he has developed the foot in the mouth disease, played a cross bat shot and then played the ungainly reverse sweep and said that he did not mean harm to Muralitharan, but that he was lashing out at the International Cricket Council.

Bedi has always been a virulent critic of Muralitharan. He promised, initially to face Muralitharan's legal action saying that he has freedom of speech. If that was the case, then Bedi should have bowled that way.

But now by saying that he had nothing against Muralitharan, but that he has an axe to grind with the International Cricket Council, Bedi has lost face and dropped drastically, in the esteem that he was held.

True that Bedi had freedom of speech. But he should have been aware of its boundaries. His vitriolic speech, where he hurt and defamed the spinner was to say the least unacceptable and left him open to legal action.

Now that Muralitharan's legal team has taken strike, it would be interesting to watch how the former Indian spinner would face, counter and defend the doosras bowled by President's counsel Romesh de Silva and team.

Muralitharan's action will always be queried. That is because he bowls with a peculiar action. But the ICC has given him the licence to roll on and that is the bottom line.

On the tour of New Zealand last year, Martin Crowe, the former Kiwi skipper who was doing a TV commentary during the Sri Lanka-New Zealand series, tread where angels fear to, and made a big fuss and publicised it that he was reporting the bowler to the lords of cricket.

But Crowe's cawing seemed to have fallen on deaf ears of the lords and for all I know, Crowe's report would have been thrown to where it rightly belongs - the WPB.

Till November dawns when the two Test matches against Australia would be played in Brisbane and then Hobart, Muralitharan must put on his helmet and be ready to face the vicious bouncers that would be bowled his way, by the frustrated who would not like to see him crowned the best bowler in the world.

He should duck these bouncers, and demolish the Australian batting and pocket the nine wickets required to install him as the king.

Indian Cricket League on the road

The Indian Cricket League, a tournament something similar to what the late Kerry Packer innovated, seems to be gathering strength with each passing day.

It is reported that leading players from all Test playing countries have been approached and some of them have fallen prey to the tempting sums of money offered.

When the final list of players are released, it would shock and stun the establishments. This venture by Subash Chandra of Essel Group, ran into early teething problems. But from reports all moves are working well what with Tony Greig, Dean Jones, Kapil Dev and Kiran More heading the Executive Board.

It is rumoured that the ICL is looking to sign up a lady from Sri Lanka who has been in the swim of things where women's cricket was concerned to be their contact.

This lady had been very efficient in handling women's cricket and was one of the organisers of Women's World Cup Cricket Tournament.

Who the lady is would be known soon.

This new tournament has caused chaos in most cricket boards and it is no different in Sri Lanka. The Interim Committee of Sri Lanka Cricket has acted tough and made it known that if any of the Lankan players sign to play for ICL they would be banned from all forms of the game.

Before handing down these tough measures, the SLC should have realised that this tournament is not something akin to the dreaded rebel tour that some of our cricketers indulged in when they surreptiously toured apartheid South Africa in 1982 for filthy lucre.

South Africa were outcasts because of their inhumanity to man and most countries refused to have dealings with them, till they shed their apartheid policies and acted like humans.

The banning of the rebel cricketers was applauded allround because they deserved it. But in this instance, the ICL organised tournament is something similar to what Kerry Packer did because his Channel Nine failed to get the rights to telecast Australian cricket.

It will be interesting to watch how many Sri Lankan cricketers would sign with ICL and what action they would take if the SLC goes ahead with its threats and ban them from all forms of the game.

The coming months will tell.