Pakistan's cricketing interest: Zaka flies to Dubai for ICC 'Big Three' talks

The draft proposal will be discussed at two-day ICC board meeting in Dubai on January 28-29.

LONDON/ LAHORE: As the ‘Big three’ plan to take control of the International Cricket Council's (ICC) financial and administrative matters, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) recently reinstated chairman Zaka Ashraf vowed that he will only act in the best interest of Pakistan.

Three countries, India, England and Australia, have been lobbying to get votes in their favour because they will need to have majority at their side if they want the resolution on the plan to be passed.

“I’ve been in daily contact with BCCI President Srinivasan about the issue, but I’ll only act in direction which will be in the interest of Pakistan,” Zaka told reporters in Lahore before his departure to Dubai.

“ECB chairman Giles Clarke has also invited me for a dialogue, but as I said our first priority is the betterment of Pakistan cricket.”

‘Big three’ bid to re-shape world cricket

Cricket’s power-brokers meet next week amid an apparent threat from India to withdraw from major global events unless there is radical reform of the ICC.

The draft proposal to be discussed at a two-day ICC board meeting in Dubai on January 28-29 calls for more decision-making powers for a three-strong group of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Cricket Australia (CA) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) –who between them represent the game’s wealthiest nations.

The proposals need seven votes from the ICC’s 10 leading nations to pass.

Thursday saw the BCCI’s emergent working committee declare the proposal ‘in the interests of cricket at large’.

Criticism from other boards has so far largely been muted to complaints about a failure to follow procedure.

Both South Africa and Sri Lanka have called for the proposals to be deferred and taken off the table next week.

Meanwhile, Federation of International Cricketers’ Association chairman Paul Marsh accused the ‘big three’ of leaving the other seven leading nations to ‘wither on the vine’.

But with the BCCI, thanks to the huge popularity of cricket in India, generating 80% of the ICC’s global revenue, there is an acceptance in some quarters it deserves a larger slice of the proceeds.