Starting from Kane Williamson’s seraphic double ton to UAE’s implausible victory over Ireland to India’s historic and heroic showing in Sydney to Dom Bess’ filthy five-fer in Galle, cricket in 2021 has gotten off to an effing-fantastic start.  Yet, unfortunately, controversies have continued to mar the sport. Be it Rishabh Pant allegedly faking an elbow injury to evade wicket-keeping duties on a deteriorating fourth-day wicket, or Steve Smith pretending to shadow bat whilst deliberately tampering with the pitch and using his ‘quirkiness’ as an out, or Tim Paine calling Ravi Ashwin a d***head for having scored 4 more Test centuries than him, the actions of professional athletes, over the course of the past week, have left the sport disgraced. 

“Steve Smith must be banned for life for his actions, the cheating pri*k. @ICC Once a cheater, always a cheater,” wrote one user, while another noted, “So Rishabh Pant is fit enough to score a 97 but not keep? This is the second time India are bending the rules. Dock them WTC points @ICC.”

“We, here at the ICC, sincerely apologize for our negligence. We acknowledge that by not enforcing stringent punishments on offenders, we have set a bad precedent for the sport. It has come to our knowledge and attention that fans have rightfully been left infuriated over our tendency to ‘look the other way’, thus to set the record straight, we, the members, have decided that, hereon, no stone will be left unturned,” reads the statement from the council’s new independent chairman Greg Barclay. 

However, Barclay’s statement does not just end with an apology. In a groundbreaking reveal, the ICC chair elect has revealed that in order to keep the supporters satisfied, and in order to remove bias, the council have decided to hand full power to the fans. By ‘full power’, the New Zealander means that fans will now have the authority to decide the nature of the punishment - ranging from a 10% fee fine to a one-year ban. 

But given there are close to 100 million cricket fans on the internet, how exactly will this fans-deciding-the-punishment process work? According to Barclay, smartphones are key. The newly-elected ICC chair from New Zealand has revealed that a rehashed ‘ICC’ app will be rolled out next month, through which supporters will be able to cast votes and decide punishments for player offences.

“It is simple. Once you enter the app, there will be a ‘player conduct’ section. Present in this section will be the complete list of players who have committed any offence in an ongoing or recently-completed match. Users can choose the severity of the punishment they wish to inflict via a drop-down-box and hit the ‘submit’ button. 

Barclay also has said that the ICC will help the fans in every way possible to help spot ‘incidents’ that go unnoticed.

“Six months ago, we opened the archive for a few days, but now we’ve decided to go a step further. Complete stump-mic audio and stump-cam footage of all games will be put up on the app to make it easier for fans to analyze and report offences. By this way, anyone can screen-record and upload it to Twitter, after which one retweet from a ‘big account’ will be enough to make the incident go viral.” 

“The option that garners the majority of votes wins. There are no two ways about this. We are providing an open and transparent platform, so we really cannot bear the blame or fault the process if someone feels hard done by. Isn’t that precisely how the world works? The person - or the party - who attracts the most votes sits atop the ladder. Even on a cricket field, the decision of the third umpire stands final, right? Likewise, the option with more votes will be the punishment for the player. It doesn’t matter if Virat Kohli is to be let go freely for blatant ball-tampering or if Babar Azam is to be banned for a year for slow over rate - we will leave it to the fans to decide the course of action, and we will give them what they want.”

Not just this, the app, Barclay says, extends beyond what everyone perceives it to be.

But shouldn’t the players also be able to express their side of the story? Doesn’t a Krunal Pandya deserve to let the world know his version of events before he is judged, vilified and punished? Or doesn’t a Steve Smith deserve to walk free if his opponents themselves vindicate him of any wrongdoing? “No”, according to Barclay, for the simple fact that it’s time to clean up the sport, even if it means innocent men and women getting caught in the crossfire. 

“We’ve given far too many players a pass in the past for there to be any kind of leniency from now on. There needs to be outrage. Every fan needs to outrage on social media and make a mountain out of a molehill in the first opportunity they get - this will instill fear in the players. Even if the reputation of a couple of players takes a hit wrongfully, it will all be for the greater good of the sport.”