My friend Najam Sethi’s challenge

One hopes despite his known proclivities, Najam Sethi will not accept the B-3 fait accompli.

As was expected, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has accepted the Big-Three Dadagiri in international cricket that allows India, Australia and England virtual monopoly over the International Cricket Council (ICC). In a statement issued after the latest ICC Board Meeting in Dubai, the PCB said “it had agreed to the revised ICC resolutions only on the conditions that it would get bilateral series with all members from 2015-2023”.

“We had completed the discussion, consultation and negotiation phase with regard to the revised resolutions. It was important for us to get assurances on bilateral cricket with all Boards, especially India, which we have now received. The detailed Future Tour Programmes (FTP) are now being finalised with all, especially India,” PCB chairman Najam Sethi said in the press release.

Sethi clarified that Pakistan had decided to change its stance after “the (ICC) resolutions have been diluted considerably from when these were first presented, and are now unobjectionable.” According to the chairman, the PCB will soon disclose its “achievements” made during the ICC meeting. Earlier, he has been blaming his nemesis Zaka Ashraf for Pakistan’s exclusion from the affairs of the ICC.

Pakistan abstained from the voting in the ICC Board meeting in February in which the three biggest cricketing nations — India, Australia and England — got a majority of the powers in the sport’s governing body, securing nine votes from the 10 full members. Sethi claims the situation would have been different had he been there. Let us hope his magic wand will now get Pakistan its lost position back in the world’s cricket management.

One must not, however, lose sight of the crux of the problem. In their lust for power and money, the world’s three most influential cricketing countries through a surreptitious manoeuvre managed to divide world cricket on the basis of money-making clout and credentials. Ironically, claiming to be the champions of democracy and equality, they joined together in opting for most undemocratic means in acquiring arbitrary control over the world’s cricket. Money was the endgame. There is nothing wrong if Sethi now manages to recover Pakistan’s due share in the cricket money.

The big question, however, is: will he put Pakistan back in the ICC’s decision-making saddle as an equal member of the world body? The very concept of “Big Three” was based on discrimination. Dividing the cricketing nations in two unequal classes is nothing but neocolonial adventurism in sports. By becoming a new elitist privileged club with complete control over the ICC, the B-3 reduced the other seven countries (Bangladesh, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, New Zealand, West Indies and Zimbabwe) into a non-consequential group of ‘Subordinate-Seven’ or S-7. It was demeaning for them.

The B-3 will not only control the five-member executive committee atop the ICC Board in charge of all policy but also will remain immune 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. At stake is also the current ICC Future Tours Programme (FTP), a system that ensured all the 10 leading nations played one another over a set period with no selectivity or exclusion, guaranteeing, in particular, the smaller countries were not starved of Test cricket.

A BCCI official was candid enough to admit the B-3 plan was meant only to formalise dadagiri (an Indian equivalent of “bullying” or throwing one’s weight around) in cricket.

Despite global reaction, the B-3 bullies managed to bulldoze their devious plan at the ICC Board’s meetings earlier this year in a pre-choreographed setting. “Carrot and stick” was used to bring intense pressure upon the other seven boards, especially the vulnerable ones, forcing them to submit to their power game. No one with genuine cricket conscience could accept the B-3 takeover that made it virtually a privileged “oligarchy” of world’s cricket.

The real challenge for the boards of other seven countries was to join together in pre-empting the controversial B-3 plan. They had the potential in terms of their numerical strength and cricketing credentials to counter the B-3 agenda and should have been coordinating among themselves. But PCB’s internal wrangling and poor leadership inspired no confidence among the other boards. It was too enmeshed in an internal crisis of its own to forge a credible alliance against the masterful gang of B-3. No wonder, the other six could not trust a weak and unreliable partner and hesitantly accepted the B-3 package.

Typically representing our national scene, the PCB was caught clueless of the brewing B-3 conspiracy and soon found itself totally isolated. Whatever the pros and cons of the B-3 plan, its auspices were highly questionable, if not mala fide. They never engendered an environment of trust or fair dealing. My friend Najam Sethi’s challenge as PCB chairman now is to reverse this lopsided situation. He has all the abilities and skills needed to negotiate. One hopes despite his known proclivities, he will not accept the B-3 fait accompli. This is the test of his grit. It is not a “take-it or leave-it” game. He must play the game but not the losing one.

Pakistan is not a small country and has its own cricket stature. It just cannot be treated like a petty client. But to be taken seriously by his interlocutors, Sethi first needs to put his own house in order. His real challenge is to turn the PCB around. Only then can he negotiate an honourable return for Pakistan to a berth in ICC hierarchy that genuinely belongs to it. In any case, our cricket team is at its weakest level. On the latest T20 scene, it has proven itself a mere tukka side, always depending on flukes with no visible planning or predictability.

Because of the security situation at home, we are almost out of international cricket. Instead of giving in to the B-3 blackmail for the sake of foreign cricket tours, focus inwardly and consolidate your cricketing stature. You need to shed the dead wood and chisel up a new talent pool altogether. More domestic cricket is what you need, not falling in line with another India-driven fait accompli.

Unfortunately, even as a country and as a nation, we have left ourselves to the vagaries of time or at the mercy of others, while innocently continuing to believe that everything will be all right, magically or providentially. We must remember the “angels” have no time for us. They are all too busy helping those who help themselves.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2014.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.