TELFORD VICE
The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) board meeting in Dubai ended yesterday in the calm that will be swept away by the storm of its sequel.
Unless, of course, world cricket’s suits spend their time until the next meeting horse-trading themselves into a frenzy to get the most out of attempts to lobby their support for or against a restructuring proposal that, if passed, will change the game radically.
When will the ICC board gather again to vote on resolutions that would cement control of the game in the hands of India, England and Australia and with it a larger portion of the game’s revenue?
“There’s a date that’s still being talked about, but that’s still to be agreed,” was the closest ICC president Alan Isaac came to committing himself at a press conference in Dubai yesterday.
That date, according to various sources, is February 8 - 10 days from today.
The press conference, a five-minute video version of which was posted on the ICC’s website, was the organisation’s only interaction with the media on the contentious proposals yesterday.
On Tuesday, the ICC claimed in a statement that there was “unanimous support for key principles”.
But, within a few hours, Cricket SA, Sri Lanka Cricket, the Pakistan Cricket Board and the Bangladesh Cricket Board had disputed that assertion, most of them saying they wanted the discussion deferred.
However, indications last night were that Bangladesh had switched allegiance after being assured that they would not be in danger of being relegated from test cricket. The original proposal called for the bottom two of the current 10 test-playing sides to be grouped in a competition called the Intercontinental Cup, along with six other non-test-playing sides. Bangladesh are ranked ninth.
If the Bangladeshis have crossed over, the camp in favour of the new deal would need just one more defection to secure the 75% majority vote required for the proposal to be accepted.
“There was no vote on the resolutions because the resolutions are still being discussed - the content of the resolutions and some of the detail behind them,” Isaac said.
“So that’s why we took an approach of not having a vote. In fact, there was nothing to vote on. But we thought it was important to make some progress around some principles.”
Among the decisions taken at the meeting was to cancel the World Test Championship (WTC), which was to have seen its inaugural edition in 2017, in favour of resurrecting the Champions Trophy, which had been scrapped after last year’s tournament.
It was left to ICC chief executive Dave Richardson, who had explained to an audience at a gala dinner in Abu Dhabi on October 12 why the WTC was a good idea despite the challenge of finding a viable format, to explain yesterday why the WTC was a bad idea.
“We were always struggling to find a format for the WTC that could be completed in a relatively short space of time, and that would not lead to more damage than good,” Richardson said.
“In the absence of having nothing in place, the WTC was quite good for cricket. However, if you look at it the way the board has looked at it now, we’ve got the rankings system which is becoming more and more prominent.
“More people are taking note of it and more teams are trying to end the year at No. 1 and earn the prizemoney that goes with that. There’s prestige in saying you’re the No. 1 (team) and the holder of the mace.”
Similarly, the Champions Trophy that was an unwanted child as recently as June was now the apple of the ICC’s eye.
“At this point the Champions Trophy has proved a great event,” Richardson said. “It proved very popular among everybody last year, and it seemed like a sensible decision to change.”
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