Sri Lanka unanimously oppose ICC reforms

Cricket board receives backing of former captains, past presidents.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) came out with all guns blazing after a meeting of the executive committee – that met with all the stakeholders, past captains, past presidents and secretaries of SLC and sports ministry representatives – to discuss the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Revised Working Group Proposals on Wednesday.

“The Revised Proposals put forward by the ICC, the views of the legal advisory committee and the financial evaluations were taken into consideration and discussed in detail,” said a statement issued by the body.

The committee’s view to safeguard the current rights and privileges of Sri Lanka as a Full Member of the ICC was endorsed by the stakeholders.



All present at this meeting were in unanimous agreement with the decision taken by the executive committee to oppose the Revised Proposals.

The statement has cleared the doubts that had surfaced about Sri Lanka looking at possible deals with the ‘Big Three’ to ensure that they find a way out for their financial troubles.

‘BCCI happy to be involved in leadership’

On the other hand, the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) N Srinivasan has strongly defended India’s claim for a higher percentage of the ICC’s global revenues.

He claimed that India would have never signed the Members Participating Agreement (MPA) – a programme that ethically binds Test-playing nations to play against each other over a period of time – in its existing form.

Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Srinivasan said the proposed restructure in the governing body of the game is aimed at providing financial stability to all members while making the body more inclusive.

“The BCCI is quite happy
to be involved with the leadership of cricket,” he said. “We will embrace this ICC in the new structure, which will be good for cricket as a whole.”

The BCCI is set to become the greatest beneficiary under the proposed revenue distribution plan, with its earning increasing in the range between $63 million and $766 million.

Srinivasan claimed that there was universal recognition of India’s contribution to cricket’s global revenues. He also added that the BCCI had a few genuine issues with the MPA as it stood.

“I don’t know how it got signed. I would not have signed the last MPA. There are a lot of disadvantages. We had made it clear that we could not sign the MPA in its current form.”

Associate members stand to gain: Srinivasan

Srinivasan also endorsed the stance brought forward by the ICC after the Executive Board meeting in Dubai last week that the Associate members stand to gain, financially and on the field, from the proposals.

“In this proposal, they are likely to get 200-plus costs,” he said. “The top performing Associates will get almost a $100 million, which is what was [previously] given to all of them.

“What has been their concern at all times? They say we are playing only amongst each other; we never get to play you. So there is an opportunity now. You can’t look at things overnight; you take a 10-year cycle.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 6^th, 2014.

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