The crucial two day Executive Board meeting of the International Cricket Council, which will decide the comprehensive structural overhaul of world cricket administration starts at the headquarters of the world cricket ruling body at Dubai Sports City today.
The ICC Board consists of the chairman or president from each of the 10 full members plus three elected associate member representatives. Bangladesh will be represented by the board president Nazmul Hasan and Mahbub Anam.
The meeting will go to polls to decide on the proposal, drafted by a "working group" of the ICC's Finance & Commercial Affairs (F&CA) committee - in which the Board of Control of Cricket in India, Cricket Australia and England &Wales Cricket Board are key members - recommends wide-ranging changes in the ICC's revenue distribution model, administrative structures and the Future Tours Programme (FTP), questions the relevance of Test rankings and suggests the reinstatement of the Champions Trophy over the World Test Championship. The amendment needs seven votes of the ten to be drafted as the new rules of ICC.
The new proposals effectively gives most executive decision-making power to the BCCI, Cricket Australia and the ECB. These boards – who are being called the “Big Three” - is poised to gain more control over world cricket, both on and off the field, a larger share of revenues, in a ratio that is linked to the ICC's revenue growth. The formation of the ICC Business Co (IBC) - a newly formed business arm which will be set up to replace the existing IDI (ICC Development International) will control media rights and sponsorship issues
The proposal recommends creating a four-member group called the Executive Committee (ExCo) between ICC committees and the Executive Board, which consists of the heads of national boards. The ExCo, the proposal recommends, will include three permanent representatives from CA, ECB and BCCI, who will share an annual rotating chairmanship. A fourth member of the ExCo will be nominated by the ICC's Executive Board and come from the seven other full members.
Regarding Test match promotion and relegation, the proposalstates that "relegation exceptions" will apply to India, England and Australia. This is "solely in order to protect ICC income due to the importance of those markets and teams to prospective ICC media rights buyers.
At the administrative level, the recently created post of ICC chairman will, according to the new proposal, be annually rotation between "one of the nominees of the ECB, CA or the BCCI.”
The new distribution model of the ICC’s income as recommended in the proposal includes the creation of a "contribution cost" as recognition for every member’s role in "contributing to generating ICC's revenues required to sustain the game. The Big Three enjoys greater shares of the ICC's revenues as they increase. For example, the BCCI's share would be 4.2%; should the new rights cycle gross revenue cross $3.5 billion, the BCCI's share will be 21% - a total of $766 million.