Cricket’s minnows can swim

One of the most consistent criticisms of cricket’s ruling body, the ICC, has been that it does little for the game outside the comfortable old boys’ club which has dominated the Test arena.

The far from subtle 2014 decision which, more than any other previous less than salutary manoeuvre, entrenched the financial dominance of the so-called Big Three – England, India and Australia – and almost with contemptuous disregard for the other seven Test-playing nations, awarded the trio of powerful unions the lion’s share of the loot.

Predictably, India opposed any change of the status quo with the Board of Control for Cricket in India standing to lose $277 million in revenue over the next eight years under the changes – and more flowing to minor Test nations and associate members.

Despite India’s opposition to the reforms, it was a former BCCI boss, ICC chairman Shashank Manohar, who was asked by the council to defer his resignation last month to see the reform package through and declared it “another step forward for world cricket”.

“I am confident we can provide a strong foundation for the sport to grow and improve globally in the future through the adoption of the revised financial model and governance structure,” said Manohar, who was in the thick of the infighting following probes into backhanders and spot-fixing implicating Narayanaswami Srinivasan, who the Supreme Court of India had ordered to quit as BCCI president to facilitate investigations into the IPL betting scam.

The new dispensation is groundbreaking in any number of ways. First, it badly dents the almost iconoclastic approach the BCCI has adopted to the rest of the cricketing world and opens the door to nations aspiring to join the mainstream – an ambition that the ICC have been less than lukewarm about promoting in the recent past.

It could also open the way to a two-tier Test structure with the lesser nations – somewhat contemptuously referred to as associate members – being welcomed and perhaps even have an annual one-off “Test” scheduled against the top countries.

But whatever happens when the dust finally settles and India accept the face of the future, cricket can only land up healthier and stronger in the long-term.