For a change, BCCI stands alone

New Delhi, April 26 

The Indian cricket board’s (BCCI) hegemony in world cricket came under severe threat today as the richest board was comprehensively out-voted on governance structure and revenue model at the ICC Board Meeting in Dubai. BCCI was checkmated by its former boss Shashank Manohar, who now helms the ICC as its first independent chairman. BCCI was thrashed 1-9 as the representatives of all other member nations voted in favour of a change in the governance structure. BCCI’s opposition to the change in the revenue model was also rejected 8-2, with Amitabh Chaudhary finding support only from Sri Lanka.

The more contentious issue for BCCI was the proposed revenue model, which is set to bring its share from the ICC earnings down to half from the current $570 million. Manohar has advocated a more equitable distribution from the earlier ‘Big Three’ Model, in which India, Australia and England were the primary earners.

“Yes, the voting is over. It was 8-2 in favour of the revamped revenue model and 9-1 in favour of the constitutional changes,” said a senior BCCI functionary. “BCCI voted against both as these changes are completely unacceptable to us. At this point, we can only say that all options are open for us. We will have to go back to our SGM and apprise the members of the situation,” he added.

A peeved senior BCCI official said that while the opposition in the meeting was expected, what with the current BCCI dispensation’s bête noire Manohar helming ICC, they were taken by surprise when Zimbabwe and Bangladesh — the two votes BCCI thought it would get — never came their way. It is also a sort of embarrassment for the Committee of Administrators (COA) as it was dealing with a lot of member nations and was extremely confident of getting them behind BCCI. The heavy defeat indicates that COA failed to read the minds of the representatives of the member nations who had come to India to discuss the changes.

“Zimbabwe has been promised $19 million by ICC. On what grounds has Manohar made this promise? At the meeting, Manohar told us that $290 million was the ‘take it or leave it’ offer,” said the official. 

Asked if India could now withdraw from the Champions Trophy, the official said, “All options are open. They have basically disrespected the Members’ Participation Agreement that was earlier signed. We will now call an SGM and apprise the General Body about the developments; an appropriate decision will be taken.”