Kolkata: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) looks all confident of getting the support of four other boards which could help them block out the new revenue policy of the ICC and shift back to the 2014 ‘Big Three Plan’ that guarantees them a good share of the revenues and a say in the governance of the parental cricketing body of the world.
The board meeting conducted by the ICC( International Cricket Council) scheduled to be held on Wednesday in Dubai would decide the proceedings in the matter.
According to claims made by a senior board official, the BCCI already has the support of four other cricket boards which include Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, but there hasn’t been any official statement as of now.
It looks like that the BCCI is confident that it would secure the votes of four other countries to stick to the 2014 model, which would thus lead to further rounds of discussions before the ICC Annual Conference, slated to be held this June. The Indian cricket board might not even manage to get the support of four other boards which makes this meeting, which ends on Thursday, a truly anticipated one as there are going to be lot of heated arguments.
The Supreme Court had sometime back declared that acting secretary Amitabh Chaudhury would represent the BCCI at the meeting and in what looks like a desperate effort from the Indian cricket board in gaining supporters to have the ICC stick to the controversial 2014 model, treasurer Anil Chaudhry has reached Dubai early to try and convince the other boards to support them in this meeting.
No confrontation…
Although the Committee of Administators (COA) had asked the BCCI to avoid conflict in this issue, the latter has been quite aggressive in it’s campaign to retain the 2014 proposals.
A board source said, “The ICC has offered BCCI a slightly higher share (than they would get in the reworked revenue model) to get them around to accept the new model. However, the BCCI stand is that what money is being doled out actually belongs to us.”
Gaining the support of the four boards would virtually mean a win-win situation for the BCCI because then, the talks in this regard has a good chance of getting deferred to the ICC Annual Conference in June when the chairman of the body and a proponent of the new model, Shashank Manohar would empty his chair.
What makes us believe that the smaller boards would be supportive of the 2014 ‘Big Three Plan’ is the fact that they would not only be guaranteed with a higher share of revenues, but they do not quite seem to get to terms with the changes in the cricket structure, especially with the proposed Two-tier Test structure.
The newly proposed structure says that all the test teams would be categorised into two tiers- a first tier and a second tier, where the top seven teams would be in the first category and the bottom three sides would be the second one joined by the associate nations- Ireland and Afghanistan.
The good thing about this plan is the involvement of the associate countries in the Test structure. But it’s biggest drawback is the fact that if this structure is applied, then there would be huge gap between the top teams and the teams in the second tier and as a result, many players might lost their faith in the five day format and start playing more T20 cricket.
Support for BCCI
However it has also been heard that some boards are supporting this new financial model provided the Two-tier Test structure doesn’t come into play” said a source.
Further adding said he, “Cricket structure is not part of the board meeting. It is there only at the Chief Executives Committee level and may not be discussed at the board meeting.
The decision can be taken later and it is possible the ICC may agree not to bring in the two-tier system and they vote against BCCI (on the revenue issue). It could all depend on how they are convinced with the carrot of bilateral series promised by India.”
As of now, it seems that if nothing goes their way, the BCCI’S final gamble would be to opt out of the upcoming champions trophy which would then not only have a penalty, but also would exclude India from all ICC events till 2023, which includes the ICC World Cup 2019, the World T20 2020 in Australia and the Women’s World Cup 2021, in New Zealand amongst a lot many others.
Signs of this extreme move being taken is already visible after Team India did not name their squad for the Champions Trophy before the Tuesday deadline.
However later it was learnt that the reason for this wasn’t defiance but due to some logistical problems created by the IPL for which the ICC is likely to allot a new deadline to the BCCI for naming the team.
India’s absence from any major ICC event is in all likelihood going to make the revenue rates fall massively.
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)