ICC v BCCI

The ICC and BCCI cold war is now on center stage. Mr. Modi V.P, BCCI made it clear to the media that ICC was trying to dominate its members, he also hinted that some members of ICC are still living in the period of colonization.

ICC should gets this clearly. For past “n” number of years, attitude of ICC officials has cultivated similar opinions in the mind of many cricket loving Indians. Time and time we have seen ICC being biased and, players from South Asia were punished or treated to a greater degree than say, someone from Australia or England. Take the recent one , Ricky Pointing was let go freely without a match suspension for his unruly behavior with the umpire. Asian players have had match suspensions for such behaviors in past. Having been through heavy handed treatments often by match ICC referees, it is natural for a country to have such a frame of mind against ICC. This feeling doubles when you realize that India brings in about 80% of the revenue for ICC to function.

Latest controversy, according to Mr. Modi, ICC is playing unfair and is holding out on the media rights for the 2011 World Cup by saying that the BCCI can bid for the rights only if ICC Development International, its marketing arm, repeals its decision to restrict the bidding only to broadcasters. "It looks as if the MPA was framed only to tie our hands behind our backs, and then ask us to host the 2011 World Cup. Modi further adds , the cynics and sadists could not believe that India could organize the World Cup. We not only hosted one but two World Cups successfully within eight years. That saw the dismantling of other vestiges of the Raj. but there are certain pockets that still seem to suffer from the colonial hangover.", The ICC must remember this, if ICC wants to triple its rights fee to a staggering $1.5 billion, hey considerable percentage of that money has to come from India. As Mr. Modi puts it rightly it is time to have chief executive Afro-Asia, someone who understands the problems of a majority of ICC members and doesn't heed just the affluent alone.

I am finally kind of happy that someone from BCCI had the guts to take such a stance with ICC. India needs more power in ICC, the reason is very simple - Indian board's media rights has leapfrogged from $40 million to $612 million and this is projected to hit the billion-dollar mark in the next four years.In the reply to Mr. Modi statement, Mr. Malcolm Speed has hit out India and suggested to use right channels to take up this issue. We might see more “speed tickets” during India England tie.

As if this was not enough Barry Big Mouth Richards on Thursday launched a sarcastic campaign against India, saying BCCI had transformed the game for commercial interests by their sheer money power. He says that Cricket is now played for money. Only few at the top posts in ICC or BCCI have been involved with high level of cricket. 1st What is this high level he is talking about? And is there international sport that is not played for money? Cricket is a professional sport. Money making is part of it.

Have a Good week end!