The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) global events are farcical, which in itself is mind-blowing because the ICC long ago gave up running the sport, instead becoming just a glorified events company — and they can’t even do that properly.
The men’s T20 World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka from next week, won’t include Bangladesh — one of the 12 full members of the ICC.
The internal politics of the southeast Asian region are hard enough to fathom at the best of times, but these days it’s extremely complicated. The collapse of diplomatic relations between Bangladesh and India has its roots in religious fundamentalism, with Bangladesh’s absence from the tournament the result of the cancellation of Mustafizur Rahman’s IPL contract by Kolkata Knight Riders.
The franchise, part-owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was instructed by the BCCI, apparently at the direction of the Indian government, to banish Mustafizur, one of the world’s best limited-overs bowlers.
That decision led to Bangladesh requesting that their matches at the World Cup be moved to Sri Lanka. However, the ICC found that Bangladesh’s concerns about the security of their players, management, media and supporters was unwarranted. Bangladesh dug in their heels and were banned from the tournament with Scotland called up to replace them.
It’s a mess and compromises the credibility of yet another ICC event.
Tensions between Pakistan and India have seen the ICC agree that both countries would not face each other in matches at ICC tournaments hosted in those countries. Last year there was ridiculous scheduling for the Champions Trophy that allowed India to play all their matches in Dubai, while opponents flew in and out from Pakistan — ostensibly the tournament hosts.
Asia Cup tournaments that have been hosted by either Pakistan or India are now shared with Sri Lanka. The Women’s World Cup last year saw five matches involving Pakistan affected by rain during the monsoon season in Colombo.
Any thought that the ICC could even show an iota of what could be deemed leadership long ago washed away with Jay Shah — a former chief secretary of the BCCI and son of Amit Shah, India’s internal minister, who is a close ally of Narendra Modi — taking over as chair of the ICC.
It was Jay Shah who oversaw the Champions Trophy fiasco, which memorably involved South Africa’s squad flying to Dubai from Lahore, just in case they ended up having to face India in their semifinal. When the results ensured that match didn’t happen, the Proteas had to quickly fly back to Pakistan.
Even the World Test Championship is affected, with India and Pakistan unable to play each other unless both reach the final.
India is central to all this. They are the sport’s dominant economic force. There is no other sport where one country has such an overwhelming hold of so many elements — mainly because of its wealth.
Basketball may be the closest, but the NBA doesn’t dictate how the international game is structured in quite the same way India does with cricket.
England has sold its domestic T20 (The Hundred) competition to Indian conglomerates, some of whom already own all of the franchises in the SA20. Major League Cricket in the US, the ILT20 in Dubai and half the teams in the Caribbean Premier League are owned by some of the same companies.
In addition, the largest broadcast rights deal for the ICC is with JioStar in India.
It all makes it very hard for other nations to stand up to India. It was a lesson the rest of the world learnt when Haroon Lorgat was made CEO by Cricket SA, but because of his earlier run-ins with India when he was ICC CEO, CSA was punished by the BCCI. India’s 2014 tour was cut drastically short at the last minute, with the New Year’s Test at Newlands not played.
Bangladesh have been very brave to maintain their stance about not playing the World Cup. Publicly, however, only one other ICC member has supported them: Pakistan. There have been reports about Pakistan possibly withdrawing from their group fixture against India as a further show of support or their players wearing black armbands.
The rest of the cricket world is silent — because of, well, money.
But supporters and sponsors will be paying close attention. This year’s 20-team tournament, which includes Italy participating for the first time, was supposed to be a demonstration of the sport’s growth beyond the small group of traditional nations.
Instead, before a coin has been tossed, small-minded politicking — but most notably of all, the weakness of the ICC’s leadership — has illustrated that cricket is a farce.
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