The ICC is to consider a comprehensive structural overhaul of world cricket administration that will effectively cede most executive decision-making to the BCCI, Cricket Australia and the ECB.
A draft proposal on these lines will be presented to the ICC Executive Board during its quarterly meeting in Dubai on January 28 and 29.
The proposal, drafted by a “working group” of the ICC’s Finance & Commercial Affairs (F&CA) committee – in which the BCCI, CA and ECB are key members – recommends wide-ranging changes in the ICC’s revenue distribution model, administrative structures and the Future Tours Programme (FTP), questions the relevance of Test rankings and suggests the reinstatement of the Champions Trophy over the World Test Championship.
And almost every recommendation of the “position paper” gives a larger share of control over world cricket to the Australian, English and Indian cricket boards – both in the boardroom and on the field. It also gives them a larger share of revenues, in a ratio that is linked to the ICC’s revenue growth.
The ICC says these radical proposals await response from and the approval of member boards. The document does, however, contain an April deadline for the formation of the ICC Business Co (IBC) – a newly formed business arm which will be set up to replace the existing IDI (ICC Development International) – in order to take over the task of issuing tenders for the ICC’s next media rights and sponsorship cycle.
The proposal recommends creating a four-member group called the Executive Committee (ExCo) between ICC committees and the Executive Board, which consists of the heads of national boards. The ExCo, the proposal recommends, will include three permanent representatives from CA, ECB and BCCI, who will share an annual rotating chairmanship. A fourth member of the ExCo will be nominated by the ICC’s Executive Board and come from the seven other Full Member nations. The ExCo, if created according to the draft, will become “the sole recommendation committee … on all constitutional, personnel, integrity, ethics, development and nominations matters.”
The ICC’s finance and commercial affairs committee, whose working group has put together these proposals, comprises the following: Giles Clarke (chairman, ECB), Alan Isaac (ICC president), Dave Richardson (chief executive), N Srinivasan (BCCI), Neil Speight (Associate and Affiliate member/ Bermuda Cricket Board), Wally Edwards (CA), Dave Cameron (WICB), with Campbell Jamieson (GM, commercial) and Faisal Hasnain (CFO).
