World cricket is in crisis because a sport that once claimed a shared global purpose has been hollowed out from within, rather than through any decline in talent or public interest. What is presented as an international game is now structured around the power, profit and priorities of a single nation, reducing the rest of the cricketing world to spectators in their own sport.
At the centre of this imbalance sits the International Cricket Council (ICC) which was established as the custodian of a shared global game. In practice, its authority now mirrors the commercial and strategic priorities of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), operating more like a subsidiary of the BCCI.
This dynamic is driven by the BCCI’s unmatched financial dominance which has seen the Indian Premier League (IPL), wholly controlled by the BCCI, become the richest domestic competition the sport has ever known. By 2023/24, it generated close to 60% of the board’s income, a level of wealth no other cricket authority approaches — even at the international level it easily beats the ICC’s revenue generation. India’s vast television audiences underpin global broadcast revenues, granting Indian commercial interests decisive leverage over scheduling, hosting rights and long-term planning.
That leverage has reshaped cricket’s global calendar and tournament structures. Since 2011, India has dominated the hosting of ICC flagship events, often as sole host. World Cups that once rotated to expand cricket’s reach now repeatedly return to Indian soil or to arrangements aligned with Indian broadcasters. The ICC pays substantial hosting fees for these events, which then cycle back to the very boards that control them. Alongside England and Australia, the BCCI raised hosting fees and allocated events to themselves, extracting revenue upfront, before the remainder is redistributed to the wider membership of which they take a greater share than any other member. The result is the rich get richer!
Rather than resist India’s expanding control, England and Australia accommodated it, benefiting financially while abandoning their custodial responsibilities
The structural damage has been profound, with emerging markets shut out of opportunity, established regions beyond India, England and Australia stripped of influence and flagship tournaments contracting in both geographic reach and creative ambition. Cricket’s stagnation in Africa, the Caribbean and Associate Member nations is the consequence of a governance model that rewards market size over sporting equity.
Beyond tournaments, the damage is visible in the day-to-day survival of the international game, where smaller boards contend with precarious finances, weak domestic structures and narrowing pathways for players to emerge and endure.
Alongside deepening economic inequality has come the erosion of democratic governance, as financial power has hardened into political control. Smaller boards find their voices marginalised, their priorities subordinated and their survival dependent on distributions they cannot influence. This is simply a betrayal of the ICC’s founding mission to grow and sustain cricket across all its territories.
The concentration of executive authority underscores this capture with both the ICC president, Jay Shah, and CEO, Sanjog Gupta, drawn from India. When commercial might, political leverage and executive authority consolidate around a single national interest, governance is supplanted by structural dependence and institutional capture.
The global cricketing calendar has also suffered accordingly where the IPL’s relentless expansion consumes traditional international windows, fragments bilateral series and intensifies player fatigue. Scheduling decisions are no longer driven primarily by competitive balance or development needs but by the imperatives of Indian broadcasters and advertisers. Smaller nations endure prolonged droughts without fixtures. National teams, once the core of cricket’s identity, now compete with private leagues for players, loyalty and relevance.
The inequity is most severely felt among smaller Full Members. What remains are limited ICC distributions and sporadic touring opportunities. Boards across the Caribbean, Zimbabwe, Ireland and beyond face existential uncertainty, unsure whether domestic structures can be sustained or elite players retained.
Any serious assessment of world cricket must begin with those who enabled this capture of power. The boards of England and Australia carry historic responsibility and the record is clear that figures such as England’s Giles Clarke, Australia’s Wally Edwards and India’s Narayanaswami Srinivasan oversaw and legitimised seizure that locked Big Three dominance into the architecture of global cricket.
Rather than resist India’s expanding control, England and Australia accommodated it, benefiting financially while abandoning their custodial responsibilities. Once leaders of the game, they now function as junior partners within a BCCI-dominated system.
South Africa offers a stark illustration of this marginalisation, despite producing some of the game’s greatest cricketers and presently the World Test Champions, Cricket South Africa (CSA) depends on modest ICC distributions while Indian revenues run into the hundreds of billions. CSA’s decline has also been compounded internally. In its pursuit of a few additional revenue streams, CSA surrendered much of its remaining leverage by aligning itself submissively with the BCCI. The moment it sacrificed principle for patronage, its standing within global cricket politics diminished further.
Much of this capitulation to India could have been avoided had the ICC embraced the reform blueprint commissioned in 2011. The Woolf Report recommended strengthening board independence, adopting a one-vote system, reforming funding based on need and embedding ethical safeguards. These proposals were rejected by the BCCI and its allies.
The entrenchment of inequality reached its apex with the ICC’s 2023 revenue model, under which India was allocated 38.5%, roughly $230m a year, while England received 6.9%, Australia 6.25% and Pakistan Cricket Board around 5.7%. The other Full Members receive smaller portions, usually below 5%. The 90-plus Associate Members share about 11.2% of the revenue pool, collectively receiving around $67m annually
Examined closely, the ICC’s continued existence is increasingly difficult to defend, to the point where its disappearance would be felt scarcely beyond the walls of its own bureaucracy. If cricket is to recover any sense of global purpose, smaller nations may eventually be forced to explore alliances grounded in equity rather than market dominance.
Bangladesh’s request to move their T20 World Cup games from India to Sri Lanka over security concerns, followed by its ban on IPL broadcasts after Kolkata Knight Riders released Mustafizur Rahman, has finally exposed the BCCI’s coercive dominance. Dhaka has asserted rare institutional resolve, challenging a system that demands compliance while eroding sovereignty, equity and the credibility of global cricket.
World cricket has been driven away from genuine global ambition towards the interests of a small group that prospers while the rest struggle for survival. The stakes now extend beyond governance structures or balance sheets to the very essence of the sport. In failing to act with clarity and courage, the ICC has allowed cricket’s future to drift beyond its control, leaving the game stripped of its soul.
- Dawjee is a former journalist and government communicator with a long-standing interest in cricket and politics.
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