The big three and the scrawny seven

The big three and the scrawny seven

By Shamshad Ahmad
Thursday, January 30, 2014
From Print Edition of the daily “The News”.

This is unbelievable. They want to divide world cricket on the basis of money-making clout and credentials. A surreptitious plan by the so-called ‘Big Three’ or B-3 to assume a monopolistic role in pursuit of their lust for power and money reminds one of the ancient Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’, which could perhaps never have been more relevant than to these times when three most influential countries – which claim to be champions of democracy and equality – seem to have joined hands in opting for the most undemocratic means to acquire arbitrary control over world cricket.

We, indeed, seem to be witnessing ‘interesting’ times which are also times of troubles. Money is the endgame. If the Big Three succeed, it will be nothing but a new apartheid – neo-colonial adventurism in sports. At the very onset of this new millennium, it is disgusting to see self-centred retrogressive forces at full backward ‘silly’ swing in cricket. India’s Board of Control for Cricket (BCCI) seems to be behind this whole sinister plan.

Cricket’s power-brokers met in Dubai this week amid an apparent threat from India to withdraw from major global events unless there is radical reform of the International Cricket Council (ICC). The Indians managed to take Australia and England on board in formulating a draft plan – the self-avowed B-3 – that seeks for their cricket boards’ arbitrary decision-making powers and also creation of two ‘divisions’ for Test cricket. This doesn’t affect their own status because of their known commercial importance and also because between they represent the game’s wealthiest nations.

If they succeed, the B-3 will not only control the five-member executive committee atop the board in charge of all policy but also will be protected from relegation in a new two-tier competition, and extract vast ‘contribution costs’ that are essentially appearance fees for their participation in ICC events such as the World Cup and World T20 Cup. At stake is also the current ICC Future Tours Programme (FTP), a system that ensures that all the 10 leading nations play each other over a set period with no selectivity or exclusion, thereby guaranteeing that smaller countries aren’t starved of Test cricket in particular.

The very concept of the Big Three not only divides the cricketing nations into two unequal classes but also contemptuously reduces the other seven countries (Bangladesh, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand, West Indies and Zimbabwe) into a non-consequential group of perhaps the ‘Scrawny Seven’ or S-7.

The B-3 by virtue of their cricketing money-power is out to grab effective control of the game’s governing body at the international level. A BCCI official at its final working committee meeting was conscientious enough to admit the plan will formalise “dadagiri” (thuggery) or bullying in cricket.

There couldn’t be greater tragedy for the game of cricket. No one with genuine cricket conscience can accept the move that makes the BCCI, Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board a privileged ‘oligarchy’ of world cricket. They seem to have lost sense of time altogether. We are not in the 19th or 20th centuries; this is the 21st century. Other than the notorious P-5, a post-World War Two anachronism in the UN system, there is no room for any more vestiges of power. The era of colonialism and apartheid is long gone.

But the money-conscious cricketing boards of world’s three principal democracies seem to have lost not only the sense of time but also of the fundamental values and norms including the cardinal principle of sovereign equality on which is predicated the very moral edifice of today’s global order. Let us not refer to them as Australia, England and India, for that is an insult to the good folk and cricket fans in those countries. It would be appropriate to refer to them by name in alphabetical order: Mr Clarke of the EWCB, Mr Edwards of Cricket Australia, and Mr Srinivasan of the BCCI who have clandestinely produced a document that has sent the rest of the cricket world scrambling.

A vast majority of cricket fans all over the world are shocked at the BCCI’s attempted ‘dadagiri’. Perhaps it is time for the foreign ministries of these three ‘civilised’ states to give their cricketing barons a power-point presentation on the contemporary rules, laws, values and norms of international cooperation including in the field of sports. Instead of seeking to create elitist centres of power and privilege, these boards should be asked to promote greater democracy, participation, transparency and accountability in the work of the ICC.

The three self-centred cricketing boards need to understand that they are just governing bodies of cricket in their respective countries and are only affiliated to an international governing body. But the B-3 caucus is already bullying the other boards, particularly the vulnerable ones through a carrot and stick policy and also promising them of ‘benevolence’ if they become obedient followers of their planned new architecture of global cricket hierarchy.

How patronising. New Zealand and Zimbabwe already seem to have yielded to the pressure. The boards of the other five – Bangladesh, South Africa, West Indies, Sri Lanka and Pakistan – are only half-heartedly resisting the pressure.

Both South Africa, currently Test cricket’s top-ranked nation, and Sri Lanka, losing finalists against India in the last World Cup, had called for the proposal to be deferred and indeed it was taken off the table at this week’s Dubai meeting. The decision on the B-3 proposal has only been deferred, not dropped. It will now be taken up next month.

The real challenge for the aggrieved cricket boards is to act fast and in a united manner to pre-empt this controversial plan. They must coordinate among themselves and also with the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association (FICA) whose chairman Paul Marsh, the son of Australia’s great Rodney Marsh, has publicly castigated the B-3 plan which in his view will not serve the best interests of the global game.

Three former heads of the ICC also find the B-3 plan unacceptable. “Giving into blackmail never works”, said one, “what will the next demand be?” Another former ICC president questions the very integrity of the plan by exposing gross inaccuracies in its facts and figures, calling for an independent review of the document. Ironically, nowhere in the document is there any serious attempt to grapple with the underlying problems of administrative incompetence and venality within the ICC hierarchy.

In the ultimate analysis, whatever the pros and cons of the B-3 plan, its auspices are highly questionable if not malafide. Caucusing secretly, they never engendered an environment of trust or fair dealing. Instead, they seem to have brazenly signalled: OK guys, enough with the democracy, you are either with us or against us. They are sending a message to everyone in the cricket world: High ideals? Moral code? Forget it. Might is right is the new ‘spirit of cricket’.

The Pakistan Cricket Board must not take this as a simple procedural matter. It is a question of fundamental principles and values and should brook no compromise.

The writer is a former foreignsecretary.

Email: shamshad1941@yahoo.com