What should now be crystal clear from the debacle of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup is that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has failed the game of cricket. As the global governing body it should be the custodian of the global game, and not merely serve the interests of the powerful. To that extent it is not fit for purpose.
There has been an excess of finger-pointing amidst the ousting of Bangladesh from the tournament, and Pakistan’s initial refusal to play against India. While labelling this as a political confrontation is indeed correct, the attempts at justifying one or the other’s stance by resorting to moral equivalence will not lead to a resolution of the fiasco that has unfolded. Pakistan was prevailed upon to honour the group-stage match against India in Colombo on 15 February, but there was no way back for Bangladesh. The negotiations that saw Pakistan’s volte-face resulted in a commercial-cum-diplomatic solution to what is essentially a governance crisis. The underlying tensions remain, and will inevitably re-surface.
The archaic structure of the ICC and in particular its Board of Directors has long been identified as in need of a major overhaul. But it has continued to function as an elite member’s club (an exclusive men’s club despite the significant growth of the women’s game), ignoring global governance developments that embrace principles of independence, diversity, professionalism, transparency, and integrity.
The ICC has a Board comprising seventeen Directors, one each from the 12 Full Member countries, three representatives of the 95 Associate and Affiliate Member countries, a female independent Director (currently vacant), and a notionally independent Chairman, currently Jay Shah, the immediate past Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). A Chief Executive’s Committee is similarly constituted, without the independents.
The past quarter of a century has seen an exponential growth in the commercial value of the game, driven by the new T20 format and the monetization of the cricket following on the Asian sub-continent in particular, comprising almost two billion people. The income generated from broadcast and digital rights has transformed the ‘gentlemen’s game’, undermining its traditional values of fair play. The game is also growing in new markets across the globe, way beyond its Commonwealth roots.
Now is the moment to revisit the Woolf Report on ICC Governance released fourteen years ago in February 2012, as well as subsequent ‘governance reviews’. Commissioned by the ICC, the Woolf Report made this prescient observation:
“But currently the ICC reacts as though it is primarily a Members club; its interest in enhancing the global development of the game is secondary. In today’s environment this is not an acceptable situation. Cricket is a global game and there is a need for global governance. If the ICC is prevented from developing, promoting and protecting world cricket, public opinion will be increasingly critical of the Members of the ICC Board who are responsible for this.”
There could hardly have been a starker warning, one that resonates so deeply in the current malaise.
Amongst the sixty-five recommendations made in the Woolf Report was the introduction of three independent Directors on the ICC Board to “discipline parochialism”. To date provision has been made for only one truly independent Director, a position that is currently vacant. A more complex problem identified was the inherent contradiction of Member-appointed Directors who operate under a dual duty. They inevitably seek to represent and defend the interests of their appointing Boards – they are usually the Chairs of Presidents of their national federations – while simultaneously owing a fiduciary duty to the ICC. The outcome has been that the latter is observed in the breach. To overcome this the Report recommends that Member appointed Directors should not be current or recent officials of that member. While they will still naturally lean towards protecting their own interests, they must always ensure that their primary responsibility is to the broader mandate of the ICC. The independent Directors are there to keep them honest.
In 2021 the ICC approved a new global growth strategy and established a governance working group to align its institutional arrangements to deliver on that mandate. These metrics included more competitive ICC events, a focus on new growth markets such as the USA and the strengthening the expansion of women’s cricket. Its proposals included a single tier of membership and three independent directors – these proposals were rebuffed by the ICC Board in 2022, and further discussion has stalled.
Independent Directors are already a feature of a number of Full Members – South Africa, England, West Indies, New Zealand, Ireland, and Australia – so this development has been embraced by some. These are the members that should be driving the changes that are essential for the ICC. They cannot remain silent in the face of these escalating crises.
The elephants in the room are of course the BCCI and the Pakistan Cricket Board. There have been no bilateral games between them in over 20 years. They only meet at ICC events which is why there is such a commercial premium on those games. When that is put in jeopardy, as it now is, the cracks in the current order are exposed.
The BCCI is the behemoth in world cricket with over 70% of the income of the game emanating from the Indian economy. No one begrudges the BCCI the largest slice of the commercial pie, but it must be such that there is sufficient left over for the ICC to meaningfully execute its overall growth strategy. It also cannot mean that they have a veto on all decisions of the ICC. It is in fact in their long-term interest that the game develops in new markets so that the sustainability of cricket is strengthened. It is already the second most watched sport in the world, and the ICC must use this to develop cricket into a truly global game.
Lawson Naidoo is a former Chairman of Cricket South Africa, former Director of the ICC, and chaired its Governance Working Group. He writes in his personal capacity.
