Amid the excitement and the buzz of the ongoing Indian Premier League, a major issue related to Indian cricket has taken the back seat and that is India’s participation in the upcoming ICC Champions Trophy.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), on Tuesday (April 25), became the only cricket board to miss the April 25 deadline set by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for announcing the squad for the Champions Trophy; throwing Team India’s participation in the showpiece event if not in jeopardy, certainly in chaos.
With the ICC adamant to scrap the ‘Big Three’ model in favour of implementing a new revenue distribution model, the BCCI, which gets the lion’s share of global revenues in addition to having a big say in administration alongside the other members Australia and England, is threatening to boycott the tournament which begins on June 1 in the United Kingdom.
As per reports in the PTI, the governing body of the game has offered the BCCI a compensatory $100 million but the Indian cricket board, whose current share of $570 million is set to be slashed to a projected $290 million, is not willing to bow down to ICC’s proposals.
The BCCI is reportedly confident of getting the four votes from other boards required to block the move and force further rounds of discussion before the ICC Annual Conference in June but nothing is clear as of now. Reports suggest that Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe are the boards who will support BCCI in their stance of blocking the ICC’s proposal to introduce new revenue model but there hasn’t been any official word on the issue. And while these boards will surely want the governing body to scrap the ‘Big Three’ model, the ICC’s plans of introducing a two-tier Test structure can make them give their support to their Indian counterparts.
The ICC board meeting will take place in Dubai on Wednesday (April 26) and nothing concrete has panned out yet from either side. While the ICC is looking to cash in on the turmoil that is going inside the BCCI which is currently run by a Supreme Court-appointed panel, the Indian cricket board is hell bent to prevent the ICC from going ahead with their plans in order to buy time to propose a new revenue model. Moreover, the BCCI has not officially sought an extension which throws further doubts on India’s participation in the Champions Trophy.
Not naming the squad is seen by many as a non-cooperative stance by BCCI but there are still chances that they may not send the team to the UK if ICC do not listen to their demands. On the other hand, India’s absence from the tournament will also result in big revenue loss for the ICC and so it will be interesting to see the outcome of the meeting that will conclude on Thursday (April 27).
The ICC constitution allows countries to name their squad post the deadline under certain circumstances but the whole matter will become clear only after the conclusion of the board meeting.