World cricket’s future in CSA’s hands

Times Media - February 6, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Cricket SA (CSA) hold the future of the world game in their hands as of yesterday, when Sri Lanka Cricket announced their opposition to the revised restructure proposal that the International Cricket Council (ICC) board will vote on in Dubai on Saturday.

If the measures are adopted, most of the power and authority in international cricket will be the domain of the big three - India, England and Australia.

A SLC statement said the organisation was “in unanimous agreement with the decision taken by the executive committee to oppose the revised proposals”.

That puts SLC in league with Pakistan, the only other country to have come out decisively against the plan.

The proposal will need the votes of eight of the 10 full member countries to be passed. West Indies, New Zealand and Bangladesh have voiced their support for the new deal, which is the brainchild of the big three. Zimbabwe have yet to make their position clear but, having been granted a loan of US$3-million by the ICC, are expected to join this camp.

CSA thus have with the swing vote. What will they do with it?

SA’s board were the first to raise their concerns over the revamp publicly, but they have since watered down their position - perhaps in the hopes of negotiating a resumption of their lucrative relationship with India that has broken down over, apparently, CSA’s appointment of Haroon Lorgat as their chief executive.

Lorgat clashed repeatedly with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) during his tenure as ICC chief executive from 2008 to 2012.

The Lorgat effect is thought to have taken up to R200-million out of CSA’s coffers this season alone, when India shortened their tour to SA. How much India mean to CSA is the subplot of the ICC’s current investigation of Lorgat for his conduct before the publication of news reports that, he felt, had the potential to derail this season’s visit by MS Dhoni’s team.

Yesterday a source inside cricket told Times Media that CSA would back the proposal “in return for an agreement to play India, and an agreement that the BCCI will leave Lorgat alone and will not interfere with the ICC investigation”.

CSA have denied that they are in the process of striking a deal with the BCCI over the new deal in order to mend fences, but since Sunday seven sources based in three countries have said that is indeed the case.