The parallel is tenuous, but it's tempting nevertheless. Like Basil D'Oliveira more than 30 years ago, Virender Sehwag, through no apparent fault of his own, might end up being responsible for the cancellation of a Test series involving England, and plunging world cricket into a crisis with farther-reaching consequences than South Africa's isolation. The cricket world has been witness to plenty of shrill posturing and brinkmanship in the last few days, and it's certainly no exaggeration to fear that the very future of international cricket hinges on how the Indian establishment decides to deal with the Sehwag issue.

Unless the BCCI is willing to revise its stand on the status of the current match between India and South Africa, the Indian selectors will be obliged to pick Sehwag for the first Test against England, and since the ECB is unlikely to do a UCB and turn its back on the ICC, England's cricketers could get an early Christmas break.

But since so much is at stake - India stands to lose millions and England stands to lose India's tour next year - there is every possibility of a face-saving compromise: Sehwag pulls out citing a last-minute injury and the ICC agrees to banish Mike Denness from the match-referees panel. But that will only buy a short-term truce. International cricket relations will continue to fester unless the administrators buckle down to address the real problems. The Denness episode was merely a manifestation of a long-standing conflict that afflicts international cricket, not the root.

Resolution can only be achieved if administrators can bring themselves to recognise the problem - and hell, there certainly is a problem. It's simplistic and expedient for England and Australia, who ruled cricket like their personal fiefdom for nearly 120 years, to brand Jagmohan Dalmiya a power-crazy spoiler responsible for all that ails world cricket. But they will do themselves, and cricket, a favour by attempting to understand why Dalmiya has emerged a hero in India by fighting the ICC on the Denness issue. Or, for that matter, why he might win the support of half the cricketing nations if the matter was put to vote.

The fault-lines in the cricket world may not strictly run on racial lines, but it is a fact that despite their political differences, cricket administrators from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are often found on one side in the international divide. They are bound by a sense of perceived injustice and common mistrust towards the white nations, primarily England and Australia.

The ECB and ABC have done little to dispel perceptions that justice is one-eyed. Hansie Cronje would have got away with his self-righteous bluster if his hands hadn't been forced by the taped transcripts of his dalliance with bookies. Apart from South Africa, India and Pakistan have been the only countries to institute formal enquiries into match-fixing, and to mete out punishments even though the findings are not legally tenable. The evidence of complicity with match-fixers was as implicating for Jadeja as it was for, say, Alec Stewart. Jadeja stays banned by the Indian Board, while Stewart's word seemed good enough for the ECB. Pakistanis find it preposterous that the ACB should have hidden the dealings of Shane Warne and Mark Waugh with a bookmaker, while the PCB was investigating match-fixing allegations levelled at Pakistani cricketers by these very gentlemen.

Indian television viewers have watched with disbelief as Australian and South African cricketers have got away with murder, while their cricketers have been put away for traffic violations. Allan Donald's abuse of Rahul Dravid in 1997 at Cape Town still rankles and Michael Slater's spat with umpire S Venkataraghavan at Mumbai earlier this year was beamed ceaselessly on Indian television channels after the mass-censure of six Indian cricketers at Port Elizabeth. It didn't make for pretty viewing. Sure, the Indian reaction to Denness's folly was needlessly hysterical. Sure, Dalmiya's demand to sack Denness was unreasonable and the blatant disregard of the ICC by the cricket boards of India and South Africa set a dangerous precedent. And the ICC was justified in stripping the third Test of its official status.

But enough damage has been done already. It's time to take a step back before cricket topples over the precipice. India mustn't play Sehwag at Mohali, even it is unfair to a young cricketer. But the least the ICC could do is to admit that Denness was wrong. Justice must be even-handed - and it should apply even to judges.

Sambit Bal is India editor of Wisden.com. More Sambit Bal
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