Adam Gilchrist has been starring of late in a mildly amusing TV commercial for a mobile phone company. The storyline, which borrows heavily from the legend of batting ignoramus Bert "Dainty" Ironmonger, sees Gilchrist take a call from his mother just as he is heading out to bat. He hands his phone to the dressing-room attendant, blasts a quickfire hundred, returns to the conversation to find Mum still prattling aimlessly away and, with trademark Mickey Mouse ears flapping wildly, says to the camera: "I'm all ears, Mum!" Again, it is mildly amusing and, as such, vaguely preferable to Max Walker's ads for mosquito repellent, Greg Matthews's plugs for hair transplants and the umpteen beer commercials over the years which have featured Allan Border and assorted Queensland cricketers. And it sure beats the hell out of last summer's moronic Weet-Bix ad, which roped in the entire Test team. Twenty seconds later, however, you are hard-pressed to recall whether Gilchrist was flogging cheap handsets, low call rates or cut-price earmuffs. It is utterly inconsequential.

So, by extension, is the whole Sponsorgate kerfuffle presently jeopardising the forthcoming Champions Trophy and next year's World Cup. The theory is that a company sponsoring a tournament is not getting full value for money if a player participating in that tournament simultaneously endorses a rival company. The reality is that few people know, and even fewer care, whether Shane Warne wears Nike or Adidas, whether Sachin Tendulkar drives a Fiat or a Toyota, or whether Adam Gilchrist's mother rings him on an Orange phone or an Optus one.

It is hardly worth sacrificing sleep, let alone a cricket tournament, over. Which is why the ICC-ACB interim peace treaty - with its stated aim of ensuring the "best possible players" compete in the "best possible tournaments" - is a welcome development.

The architect of the document is Tim May, chief executive of the Australian Cricketers' Association since its formation in 1997. May is an unusual beast in Australian cricket: an aggressive offspin bowler who became an aggressive advocate of players' rights. In December 1997, when Australia's top players were threatening to strike for better pay, May was questioned about his legacy. Did he think he would be remembered as a union guru, a militant or the man who almost bowled and batted Australia to a series victory over the 1992-93 West Indians, who had not lost in 13 years?

"I don't care if people remember me or forget me," said May. "Actually, I suppose I do care. I care that I'm viewed as being reasonable."

"Reasonable" is not a word being bandied about by the Indian board chief Jagmohan Dalmiya, who has slammed the May-brokered peace contract as "the biggest bluff of world cricket". To be fair, India's players probably have more at stake than the Australians, who would only arouse public antipathy - not empathy - if they sat out a tournament because they felt they were getting a raw deal.

But this remains, in essence, a fuss over very little. The players, by courting sponsors, are seeking to attain the best standard of living they can. The sponsors are driving the hardest bargain possible. Both parties exaggerate when they talk of potential damage to existing sponsors. Neither party deserves our sympathy - or our contempt. If anyone is at fault it is the administrators for not acting earlier to stop a significant one-day tournament - if that's not an oxymoron - being held to ransom. And then for getting all uppity about it.

As a players' representative May, born on Australia Day 1962, is an omnipresent figure these days, commenting on everything from terrorist risks to the bloated Test schedule. As an offspinner he was less of a household name, tending to be underestimated by Australia's legspin-loving public.

Like his predecessors, Bruce Yardley and Ashley Mallett, he possessed outstanding control, bowled an attacking off-stump line and gave the ball a genuine tweak; the fact that the trio played only 96 Tests between them tells you more about Australia's indifference to offspin than their respective abilities. May's career record - 24 Tests, 75 wickets at 34.74 - is mediocre, but at least partly misleading. After 14 Tests he had taken 60 wickets at 27.45 - a better average than either of the modern maestros, Saqlain Mushtaq and Harbhajan Singh.

Yet it was as a tailend batsman that May's tough, uncompromising qualities - which would famously resurface later - were perhaps most evident. After his destructive spell of 5 for 9 in the aforementioned Adelaide Test against West Indies, he followed up with a brave 42 not out that carried Australia to within one run of a series victory. Two years later he and Warne batted out the last session at Sydney to save Australia from imminent defeat against England. And in the 1995-96 Sheffield Shield final May's 64-minute duck was crucial in ending South Australia's 14-year Shield drought.

The accountant turned cricketer turned peacemaker might also boast the job description "author" on his CV. In 1998 May wrote a book that purported to be the "trueish story" of an Australian tour of the subcontinent, but was actually an almost unreadable collection of fart stories, lesbian jokes and lurid descriptions of team-mates' bottoms. "It was covered in dense black hair and where there wasn't hair there were pimples," gives you an idea of the quality of prose. Its title was based on the weakest of puns - Mayhem - a pretty apt description of how things stand today.

Chris Ryan is a former managing editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly and a former Darwin correspondent of the Melbourne Age.

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