A haunting future for cricket
In the Age, Greg Baum describes a bleak future for international cricket and traces it back to the imposition of the draft proposal put forth by the BCCI, ECB and CA
ESPNcricinfo staff
25-Jan-2014
In the Age, Greg Baum paints a future where West Indies cricket is a fully-owned subsidiary of the National Basketball Association, Cricket New Zealand exists to provide professional services to the All Blacks, Cricket Bangladesh is a registered charity, and Cricket South Africa does not exist at all. He traces these extreme developments to the imposition of the draft proposal put forth by the BCCI, ECB and CA, which will come up for discussion at an ICC meeting on January 28 and 29.
The Future Tours Program was emasculated; countries were told to make their own bilateral arrangements. Grandiosely, England and Australia promised to play the other countries regularly, the same way Australia promised at the casting of the Chappell-Hadlee trophy to play New Zealand every year. In 2014, Australia had not met the Kiwis in Test cricket for more than two years and in a one-day series for nearly three years.
The Test championship was scrapped. Instead, two divisions of Test-playing nations were created, but with the stipulation that none of India, Australia or England ever could be relegated from the top tier. The Big Three said this was necessary for the financial viability of the game. Then they awarded nearly all the extra billions to themselves anyway, on an escalating scale, tearing up a previous arrangement for equal distribution.