In contrast to their own theory of sticking to ten-team format in top level cricket, the International Cricket Council chief executive David Richardson plans to expand the number of teams to least ’15-16′ in coming years under the supervision of Shashank Manohar.
During a discussion of global development of cricket in Sri Lanka, Richardson laid down some plans saying cricket’s governing body is coming up with a strategy to make the top-brass cricket more competitive and looks to break the dead-lock of playing with 10 teams in near future.
Briefing this, he said teams like Afghanistan, Nepal and Malaysia should get a chance to play with the big boys of the game which will for sure bring the best out of them.
“The ICC has a strategy to have more competitive teams playing at the highest level. For too long we had 10 Full Members. We like to increase that number to 15-16 countries [with] the likes of Afghanistan, Nepal, Malaysia and various other countries in the Asian region. It’s very important that we can develop their cricket to a level where they can play against the big boys on an equal basis.”
He also admitted the ICC was on the brink of putting forward some proposals that would have done some good to the game. He added the revised financial model was on the cards to be implemented that would benefit the playing nations.
“Those proposals would cover governance and a new revised financial model, which would hopefully provide all the Full Members with a bigger slice of the cake than what it is currently envisaged.”
During early months of 2014, a constitutional revamp of the ICC gave India, England and Australia a larger authority over others and a also larger share of the revenue, an episode which was later dubbed as “Big Three” by the media. Later, when Manohar was granted the chairman seat in the ICC in November 2015, he openly criticized the idea, saying the formula has created an imbalance in the game and even made efforts to end bullying in game’s administration. Richardson, however gave his thumbs up of not practicing any such idea in future.
“The international game has gone through a period of turbulence, where the governance, the financial model, the playing [of the game] was in turmoil by the resolutions passed by the ICC in 2014. What happened in 2014 took place because unfortunately countries like South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand were not able to stand up to the big boys. I don’t think that will happen again.”