MUMBAI: The present BCCI regime’s grievances with the International Cricket Council (ICC) on multiple issues has taken another turn for the worse. The game’s world governing body has decided to keep the Indian Cricket Board – the richest and significantly the most powerful cricket body in the world – away from its Working Group meetings.
The BCCI says ICC did not invite India to the previous Working Group meeting that was held in Singapore this September. Another meeting that is scheduled to be held in Adelaide this week also won’t see any BCCI representation, thanks to the ICC.
Sources privy to this development told TOI: “BCCI wrote to the ICC recently (informing the parent body) that they wanted to be part of the Adelaide meeting but have not been invited for it. The ICC in return told the BCCI that it is the (ICC) Board that appoints the Working Group.”
The Indian Board sees this move on part of the ICC as a deliberate one to keep them out of the picture especially in the backdrop of the differences that had cropped up between top BCCI officials and ICC’s independent chairman Shashank Manohar.
“This is a deliberate attempt on his (Manohar) part to keep BCCI out of the ICC’s affairs,” a BCCI official in the know of things said.
The ICC Board-appointed Working Group, which is looking into the future governance structure of the ICC, including the revenue sharing model, will meet in Adelaide during the day/night Test so that it can discuss and prepare its proposals which will be submitted to the ICC Board early in 2017.
The members of the Working Group are Manohar (chairman), Giles Clarke (England Cricket Board), David Peever (Cricket Australia), Nazmul Hassan (Bangladesh) and Imran Khwaja (Singapore). After Manohar took over as the first independent chairman of the ICC, three Working Group meetings have been held so far. BCCI president Anurag Thakur represented BCCI at the first two meetings held in Mumbai (in April, 2016) and Dubai (August, 2016).
The Working Group of the ICC is looking into the future governance structure of the parent body and also the proposed revenue sharing model among other things. The proposed revenue sharing model – which was ideated in the backdrop of a rejigged Test cricket structure – was categorically rejected by the BCCI in the ICC board meeting at Cape Town in October.
Apropos of their internal disagreements, all top Indian cricket administrators from the past and present – including former BCCI and ICC chief N Srinivasan – are against the ICC’s proposed move on revenue sharing. Srinivasan, who has serious reservations with Manohar’s style of administration, saw his proposed Big Three revenue format discarded by the latter when he took office at the ICC early this year.