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'3 musketeers' take control of cricket

ICC revamp proposal approved; Bangladesh's Test future safe for now

Sports Reporter
In Singapore yesterday, the controversial proposal to revamp the International Cricket Council (ICC) by the 'Big Three' of India, Australia and England was approved as the ICC board got the required eight votes, with the Pakistan and Sri Lanka boards abstaining from voting. The dust is yet to settle from the meeting, but the picture that has emerged
is that Bangladesh's immediate concern of virtual relegation from Test cricket has been allayed, with the revamped structure of cricket's governing body ensuring that no Full Member will be relegated to a second tier.
For this the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) president Nazmul Hassan Papon deserves plaudits as he opposed this aspect of the original draft proposal fashioned by the Big Three in the ICC meeting in Dubai on January 28. The original draft proposal advocated a two-tier system for Test cricket that would see Bangladesh and Zimbabwe playing only each other and Associate Members in the Intercontinental Cup, with an outside chance at promotion after eight years.
According to an ICC press release the tweaked proposal, now approved, will have the winner of the Intercontinental Cup take on the 10th-ranked Full Member team (currently Bangladesh) in a playoff, winning which the Associate Member will be granted Test status. An inside source confirmed that this playoff will be played on a home and away basis.
BCB media committee chairman Jalal Yunus yesterday did his part to calm fears. "I can confirm that Bangladesh will not play in the Intercontinental Cup."
The pertinent aspects of this shakeup of the governing body mostly concern the concentration of power in the three richest boards of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket Australia. With the proposal being approved, BCCI president N Srinivasan will become chairman of the ICC board from July this year, while CA chairman Wally Edwards would head a newly-formed Executive Committee, which will report to the ICC Board. The ECB chairman Giles Clarke will continue to be the head of the Finance and Commercial Affairs (F&CA) Committee. These have become the three most important positions in the ICC and the ICC release stated that, "These roles will be for an initial two-year transitional period to 2016 only."
The report further stated that at the end of this "transitional period... the Chair of the ICC Board will be elected from within the ICC Board with all Full Member Directors entitled to stand for election. BCCI, CA and ECB -will be represented on both subcommittees, along with two representatives of the other Full Members (who will be elected by the Board)."
While these do not immediately concern Bangladesh, there is still work to do for Papon as the current Future Tours Programme, under which Bangladesh had gotten much of its bilateral engagements, will be scrapped and replaced with future schedules being dependent on "contractually binding" negotiations between boards.
"There was also confirmation that all Full Members will enter into a series of contractually binding bilateral agreements as a matter of urgency so that they can confirm a comprehensive schedule of matches in a Future Tours Programme that will now be extended to 2023," read the press release. This means that the BCB will have to renegotiate whatever tours that were on the docket prior to yesterday's meeting in order to ensure consistent participation in the Test arena.
Other consequences of the shakeup include a revamped revenue distribution structure. “Full Members will gain greater financial recognition based on the contribution they have made to the game, particularly in terms of finance, their ICC history and their on-field performances in the three formats," the release stated, and adding that "none of the Full Members will be worse off than they are at present and - if forecasts of revenue generation prove to be correct - all will be significantly better off. ”
There will also be a Test cricket fund which will benefit all the Full Members outside the Big Three, and the proposed Test Championship will be scrapped.