What should now be crystal clear from the debacle of themen’s T20 World Cup is that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has failed the game of cricket. As the global governing body, it should be the custodian of the global game, and not merely serve the interests of the powerful. To that extent it is not fit for purpose.
There has been an excess of finger-pointing amid the ousting of Bangladesh from the tournament and Pakistan’s initial refusal to play against India.
While labelling this as a political confrontation is indeed correct, the attempts at justifying one or the other’s stance by resorting to moral equivalence will not lead to a resolution of the fiasco.
Pakistan has now been prevailed upon to honour the group-stage match against India in Colombo today, but there is no way back for Bangladesh. The negotiations that saw Pakistan’s volte-face resulted in a commercial-cum-diplomatic solution to what is essentially a governance crisis. The underlying tensions remain and will inevitably resurface.
The archaic structure of the ICC, and in particular its board, has long been in need of a major overhaul. But it has continued to function as an elite members’ club (for men, despite the significant growth of the women’s game), ignoring global governance developments that embrace independence, diversity, professionalism, transparency and integrity.
The income generated from broadcast and digital rights has transformed the “gentlemen’s game”, undermining its traditional values of fair play
The board comprises 17 directors, one from each of the 12 full member countries, three representatives of the 95 associate and affiliate member countries, a female independent director (currently vacant), and a notionally independent chair, currently Jay Shah, the immediate past secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). A CEO’s committee is similarly constituted, without the independents.
The past quarter of a century has seen exponential growth in the commercial value of the game, driven by the new T20 format and the monetisation of the audience, especially fans in the Asian subcontinent with its population of nearly 2-billion.
The income generated from broadcast and digital rights has transformed the “gentlemen’s game”, undermining its traditional values of fair play. The game is also growing in new markets across the globe, way beyond its Commonwealth roots.
Now is the moment to revisit the Woolf Report on ICC governance, released 14 years ago, as well as subsequent reviews. Commissioned by the ICC, the Woolf Report made this prescient observation:
“But currently the ICC reacts as though it is primarily a members club; its interest in enhancing the global development of the game is secondary. In today’s environment this is not an acceptable situation. Cricket is a global game and there is a need for global governance. If the ICC is prevented from developing, promoting and protecting world cricket, public opinion will be increasingly critical of the members of the ICC board who are responsible for this.”
The BCCI is the behemoth in world cricket, with more than 70% of the income of the game emanating from the Indian economy
There could hardly have been a starker warning, one that resonates so deeply in the current malaise.
Among the 65 recommendations made by Lord Woolf was the introduction of three independent directors to “discipline parochialism”. To date provision has been made for only one truly independent director, the position that is currently vacant.
A more complex problem identified was the inherent contradiction of member-appointed directors who operate under a dual duty. They inevitably seek to represent and defend the interests of their appointing boards — they are usually the chairs or presidents of their national federations — while simultaneously owing a fiduciary duty to the ICC.
To overcome this, the report recommends that directors should not be current or recent officials of the cricket governing bodies in their countries. While they will still naturally lean towards protecting their own interests, they must always ensure that their primary responsibility is to the broader mandate of the ICC. The independent directors are there to keep them honest.
In 2021 the ICC approved a new global growth strategy and established a governance working group to align its institutional arrangements to deliver on that mandate. These metrics included more competitive ICC events, a focus on new growth markets such as the US and the strengthening and expansion of women’s cricket.
No-one begrudges the BCCI the largest slice of the commercial pie, but there needs to be sufficient left over for the ICC to meaningfully execute its overall growth strategy
Its proposals included a single tier of membership and three independent directors — but these proposals were rebuffed by the ICC board in 2022, and further discussion has stalled.
Independent directors are already a feature of the cricket governing bodies in some of the full members — South Africa, England, West Indies, New Zealand, Ireland and Australia — so this development has been embraced by some. These are the members that should be driving the changes that are essential for the ICC. They cannot remain silent in the face of these escalating crises.
The elephants in the room are of course the BCCI and the Pakistan Cricket Board. There have been no bilateral games between them in more than 20 years. They only meet at ICC events, which is why there is such a commercial premium on those games. When that is put in jeopardy, as it now is, the cracks in the current order are exposed.
The BCCI is the behemoth in world cricket, with more than 70% of the income of the game emanating from the Indian economy. No-one begrudges the BCCI the largest slice of the commercial pie, but there needs to be sufficient left over for the ICC to meaningfully execute its overall growth strategy.
It also cannot have a veto on decisions of the ICC. It is in fact in the BCCI’s long-term interest that the game develops in new markets, so that the sustainability of cricket is strengthened. It is already the second-most watched sport in the world, and the ICC must exploit this to develop cricket into a truly global game.
- Naidoo, a former chair of Cricket South Africa, is a former director of the ICC and chaired its governance working group. He writes in his personal capacity.
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