Big 3 abolished! India isolated, outvoted in ICC meeting

KARACHI: BCCI, the so-called “godfather” of international Cricket, was left isolated as a majority of the full members of ICC outvoted BCCI’s position on the new proposed constitution of ICC to abolish the infamous “Big 3” model.

The only support India got in the ICC meeting in Dubai during voting on a new constitution was from Sri Lanka, that too only for the governance changes. No one supported BCCI’s stance on its stance on the financial model.

After the voting, the new proposed constitution of ICC got 9-1 approval on financial model and 8-2 approval on governance change in existing ICC structure, which means abolishment of the unnatural big-three model.

According to the newly approved financial model, BCCI’s share from ICC revenue is now cut short to around $293 million from its demand of $570 million.

It was earlier reported that the BCCI had rejected an additional USD 100 million payout in revenue, it was once again given the original option of USD 293 million which is a USD 277 million cut from the USD 570 million India had been getting till last year.

The new constitution, however, needs to be ratified at ICC’s annual conference in June for the final approval and implementation.

Reports emerging from Indian media are indicating that BCCI is frustrated at the decision and looking to “various options” to protect “India’s interest” in ICC.

Few reports have linked India’s delay in announcing the squad for ICC Champions’ Trophy with the on-going situation.

A source privy to matter didn’t rule out the possibility of a threat coming from India regarding champions’ trophy following the developments in Dubai meeting.

“India believe that it deserve the major share in revenue because most of the sponsors are from India, the major broadcast partner is in India, so why a low ranked team get money from its share,” said the source.

“BCCI will call a special general meeting in days to come to discuss its next course of action,” it added.

However, according to Members’ Participation Agreement, delay in announcing squads doesn’t directly threat to participation of any team.

“Although there was a deadline set for members to submit its 15-member squad for the champions’ trophy but it was mainly due to commercial and logistic reasons, any team can make any changes on any ground in squad by May 24th,” the source said.

Nevertheless, ICC is in discussion with BCCI to ensure that it meets the Members’ Participation Agreement obligations.

There was no official comments from international cricket council on these developments till late Wednesday night. An official press statement form the ICC is expected on Thursday afternoon.