India bid for world domination
Scyld Berry in The Sunday Telegraph warns that the Indian board wants it all and, what’s more, it has the financial clout to be able to gobble it up
Martin Williamson
25-Feb-2013
Martin Williamson
Scyld Berry in The Sunday Telegraph warns that the Indian board wants it all and, what’s more, it has the financial clout to be able to gobble it up. The article followed the recent revelation that the Indian board has expressed their interest in buying the ICC’s broadcasting rights to ICC events for the next eight years.
As such a move would be unprecedented in the history of cricket, the implications of India owning the broadcasting rights to ICC events are impossible to specify exactly. The main events in the cricket calendar over the next eight years – notably the World Cups of 2011 and 2015, the Champions Trophy tournaments and the new Twenty20 World Championships – have already been decided. But conflicts of interest and issues of governance would be bound to arise as, in effect, a limb would be taking over control of the body.
At present, in the Champions Trophy, the arbitrary, last-minute way that Indian officials can act is being illustrated. Two days before the tournament began, one of the main venues, Mohali on the outskirts of Chandigarh, announced that it would refuse to host all five of its matches if compensation for any losses was not paid by the ICC. And the 'king of Mohali', the president of the Punjab Cricket Association, is Inderjit Singh Bindra, India's joint representative on the ICC.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of ESPNcricinfo and managing editor of ESPN Digital Media in Europe, the Middle East and Africa