India will be calling shots in the ICC executive, get a bigger share of the revenues & Srinivasan is slated to become the boss in 2014.
Dubai : In a landmark move that will change the global structure of cricket administration, the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s status as the most influential cricketing body in the world was formally acknowledged with bulk of its demands being “unanimously” passed at the ICC Executive Board meeting.
The BCCI, which provides close to 80 percent of the ICC revenue, was adamant that a revamp of world cricket must go through, failing which it will pull out of ICC events. While the ‘Position Paper’ was not tabled, the decisions taken would certainly make BCCI happy, as it would now largely control world cricket’s governing body along with England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia.
There are seven other Test-playing nations, but only one of these will sit on the new executive board in charge of running the game.
The revamp would also see BCCI have a bigger share of revenues. It was the BCCI contention that the biggest cash generators deserve access to a greater proportion of the game’s profits. The exact percentage of revenue sharing was, however, not revealed.
The smaller nations had no option but to yield before the BCCI, as they desperately need to tour India, where the money lies.
While BCCI’s demand for immunity of the ‘Big Three’ in a two-tier Test format was ruled out, they had their way in deciding the exclusive bi-lateral series agreements from 2015-2023. The decks were also cleared for BCCI president N Srinivasan to become the chairman of the ICC Board with effect from June 2014, as the first chairman will be from BCCI. Similarly, a Cricket Australia representative will be the chairman of the Executive Committee while the ECB representative will be head of the Finance and Commercial Affairs committee.
BCCI also had its way in doing away with the proposed World Test Championship; the Champions Trophy (50-over format) will stay on with three ICC tournaments being organized in every four years.
The ICC board also decided to create a ‘Test Cricket Fund’ from which all other members (excluding BCCI, CA, ECB) will be equally paid to encourage Test cricket.
“This is an important time for world cricket and it is extremely encouraging that the ICC Board has unanimously supported a set of far-reaching principles that will underpin the long-term prosperity of the global game,” ICC President Alan Isaac was quoted as saying in the press release.
“These principles emphasise the primacy of Test cricket and that for the first time in cricket’s history participation will be based entirely on meritocracy, giving everyone powerful incentives to play better cricket and develop better cricketers,” Isaac added.
