Cricket Australia chief James Sutherland said that the governing body of Australian cricket is encouraged by the interest showed by all members of ICC.
After the annual conclave of ICC in Edinburgh, Sutherland said that CA was not alone thinking about a major overhaul of the revenue model based around bilateral tours.
Sutherland said the overseas television right of India’s tour of Australia helped CA to enjoy $100 million extra annual balance sheet.
He thinks the change of the system means CA will have to compromise with their money. But Sutherland said “doing nothing is not an option” and he added that all boards had to look at “the big picture” of the international game’s future amid worsening financial conditions of other boards and encroachment of other franchise-based T20 leagues around the world.
“It’s different, isn’t it,” Sutherland said. “You have to have a belief in the broader context and you’ve also got to see the big picture. I think together with pretty well all other countries right now we see that bilateral cricket is very much our core business and it’s really important that it continues to be popular. Ideally, if we get to a situation where it has more structure around it, we build context, fans can understand and appreciate it more and we can increase the value and appeal of bilateral cricket.
“We’ve got a very open mind and we believe in a big-picture sense that the benefits will flow, not only to us but to others. It may well be we go backwards before we go forwards, we don’t know, but we do believe in the big picture and we do believe individual countries can’t operate in isolation of everyone else. That’s something we’re very conscious of and that’s why we support the work the ICC has done so far in reviewing the structure of bilateral cricket and how that might all work. It’ll be good for the game, that’s our foremost position, and hopefully down the track it’ll be good for cricket in Australia.”
However, Sutherland’s words are far different from his actions eight years ago during the “Monkeygate” controversy between Australia and India Test. Australian players are unhappy but CA has to keep India in Australia to complete the series otherwise India could have been flying back in India.
But that tour gave CA a lesson and helped them to become financially more independent. The Big Bash T20 league has become a major revenue source for the CA.
He is a member of the ICC Working committee which exploring the commercial implications of changes to bilateral series, Sutherland said he was encouraged by how much willingness he saw in Edinburgh.