India threaten withdrawal from international game

The Board of Control for Cricket in India served notice yesterday of its intention to withdraw from the international game if the controversial draft proposal was met with widespread condemnation at the International Cricket Council meetings in Dubai next week.

Cricket South Africa and the Pakistan Cricket Board have already voiced their disapproval of the proposal, while the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association and the West Indies Players’ Association have also expressed “grave concerns” over the future of the game if the “Big Three” of India, England and Australia were allowed to forge ahead with plans that would place them at the head table of the international game.

The proposal, subject to approval from the ICC’s executive board, recommends a structural overhaul of the world governing body and proposes bigger revenues and more executive decision- making powers to the BCCI, Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Then, in a message sent to fellow members, the BCCI showed its hand further. It said that the committee had “authorised the office bearers to enter into agreements with the ICC for participating in the ICC events and hosting ICC events, subject to the proposal being approved by the ICC board”.
The BCCI also cleared the way for its leading officer bearers to sign bilateral agreements with other Full Member boards, including Pakistan, but as of yesterday there were commitments only from the ECB and Cricket Australia, whose guarantee does not include Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
The absence of such a guarantee from the BCCI in the draft document had raised apprehensions among smaller boards who subsist on tours from India. Such a commitment could not have been made by the BCCI without approval of the its working committee, a formality that was completed yesterday.
“We have never said that it [the draft proposal] was set in stone or a ‘take it or leave it’ proposition,” a BCCI official said. “It is clear that it is a draft and members can discuss it with their respective boards, and it can be discussed in the ICC board meeting.”
What can be construed as “take it or leave it”, though, is India’s insistence that there be a redistribution of central revenue in proportion to the income generated through each member board.
The proposal recommends a maximum allotment of 21 per cent of the ICC’s revenues to the BCCI on the grounds that Indian cricket helps to generate 80 per cent of global revenues. The allotment at present stands at nearer to 4 per cent.
With the ICC’s next media rights deal due for tender in April, and no such document able to be floated without the agreement of all the Full Members, the world governing body has been forced into a corner by India, comfortably the most saleable commodity in the international game.
The draft proposal will be presented to the ICC executive board during its quarterly meeting in Dubai next week.
Neil Speight, the Bermuda Cricket Board chief executive, will be there as an Associate and Affiliate representative. He is also a member of Finance & Commercial Affairs committee, whose working party it was that stunned Full Members with the draft proposal two weeks ago, but strenuously denied any knowledge of it.