THE authority of the International Cricket Council (ICC) and the legitimacy of its World Cricket League has been severely eroded by the farce that was enacted in Nepal last Saturday.
Singapore were denied promotion to the World Division Four League on flimsy grounds.
Unruly behaviour by the Nepal fans cost Singapore dearly and the ICC has done nothing to pull up the host country or its unruly fans.
Is ICC indifferent because Singapore are a small cricketing nation or did it fear hosts Nepal, whose fans reportedly threatened to disrupt a Division Five final that did not feature their country?
On cricketing merits alone, Singapore should have been promoted.
They did wonderfully well to thrash Jersey and lift their net run rate to 1.347, which would have given them promotion along with the United States (1.371).
But throwing of missiles on to the pitch, which could have been stage-managed, in the match between Nepal and US torpedoed Singapore's chances.
The home team, who were losing badly, advanced unfairly when the dust had cleared with a net run rate of 1.351.
Nepali fans are known to run riot when their team are losing. But is it Singapore's fault that security measures at the Tribhuvan University ground in Kathmandu were inadequate to stop around 5,000 of them from throwing stones and invading the ground for nearly an hour?
American journalist Peter Della Pena, who was at the ground, reported: "Mayhem here. Absolute mayhem and it's quite scary. The players have all left the field. Rocks, big ones are being thrown onto the pitch... I think tear gas was fired into the crowd as things got out of hand."
If the situation was so volatile, what was the need for the ICC-appointed match referee to restart the match after an hour?
Going by precedence the match should have been stopped and awarded to the US.
In the 1996 World Cup semi-final, when a similar incident occurred in Kolkata, the match was awarded to Sri Lanka by the match referee.
India were in a losing position and the spectators threw missiles from the stands. But none entered the field.
In Kathmandu, it was a more dangerous situation. Yet, the ICC has neither launched an inquiry nor penalised the hosts, whose responsibility it is to ensure safety.
By euphemistically describing the riot as “unruly crowd scenes” and reducing the length of the interruption to “a 30-minute break”, the ICC appears to be indicating that it is a small issue. But it is mistaken.
There is the possibility that in future, home fans will make strategically-timed pitch invasions to ensure their side gain a similar unfair advantage.
The referee also applied the Duckworth-Lewis method to make up for lost time.
This was wholly inappropriate as the US had to make only 13 runs to win when violence broke out.
Even taking into account the hour's stoppage, there was enough daylight for USA to complete the formality of winning.
The application of the Duckworth-Lewis method proved cruel to Singapore. Nepal were debited 46 overs and six runs instead of 50 overs and 13 runs.
This helped them to pip Singapore by a narrow .004 margin when the net run rate was recalculated and get promoted along with USA.
The Singapore Cricket Association (SCA) appealed against the injustice meted to its team. But it was brushed aside by the ICC which did not even bother to activate its technical committee to review the incident.
The SCA's president Imran Hamid, who sits on the ICC board of directors, says that he has written to all the relevant ICC honchos.
He believes the ICC will take action within the next few days.
But why does the ICC have to wait so long? Were its officials blind to the farce that was enacted in Kathmandu?
Would the ICC have kept quiet for so long if the incident had affected a team, say India or Australia, with more financial and political clout?
Instead of stating that there will be a thorough consideration of the consequences of the riot and Nepal will be punished, its global development programme manager Matthew Kennedy has been celebrating Nepal’s rise to 29th place in the world.
What a shame the ICC did not deem it fit to dock Nepal two points and relegate it to Division Six. In any case, Nepal should be banned from hosting any ICC event for at least three years.
And, like they do in football, they must be made to play in empty stadiums in Nepal to teach their rioting fans a lesson.
By keeping quiet the ICC has given fans in any venue in the world the freedom to behave badly – and be rewarded for it.
It is a pity that the ICC with its indifference has snuffed out the enthusiasm of Singapore's part-time cricketers, who were by most accounts the best team in the tournament and have now been consigned to play in Division Five again in 2012 for no fault of theirs.
For all its talk of promoting good cricket, the ICC in this instance is seen as backing a party that disrupted a competition and falsified its outcome.
There is still time for the world body to send out a clear message that such appalling disorder will not be permitted and justice will be served.
But will it do so?
Given its politics and poor record, redemption is highly unlikely.