BACK in 2011, Game Theory proposed cricket as the world’s second most-popular sport. But, unlike the global behemoth that is football, which is played and watched across the globe, the majority of cricket players and fans live in a single country: India. In the past fortnight, this concentration of power has begun to loom as an increasing threat to the future of the sport. In the mid-1990s the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) rightly broke England and Australia’s stranglehold on the running of the game. It used its clout to remove the traditional powers’ right to veto decisions made by the International Cricket Council (ICC), cricket’s global body. Since then the ICC has symbolically shifted its headquarters eastwards from London to Dubai, and its meetings have been intensely political affairs, defined by Anglo-Australian and South Asian rivalry, and punctuated by frequent and occasionally ugly spats.

Yet a fortnight ago, a draft document was leaked, which showed the relationship between the so-called Big Three nations is shifting. Representatives from the BCCI, the England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia had met and thrashed out a deal that would see almost all executive power in the game shared out amongst themselves. New funding arrangements would enrich these countries at the expense of the smaller ICC members, such as New Zealand and the West Indies. Associate members—the up-and-coming minnows, such as Ireland and Afghanistan—would be worse off still. Furthermore, the ICC’s ten member nations would no longer be compelled to play each other home and away at least once in every four-year cycle, as they currently are under an agreement called the Future Tours Programme. This meant the Big Three could avoid playing “uneconomic tours” to countries such as Bangladesh or Zimbabwe. Most brazenly, Test cricket would be shuffled into a two-league format, with Australia, England and India immune from relegation from the top division.

Ahead of an ICC meeting in late January, at which the national boards were due to vote on the plan, India announced that it would withdraw from the ICC’s showcase events—the 50-over World Cup and the World Twenty20—unless the new structure was approved. Despite protests from South Africa, Bangladesh and Pakistan, after the first day of the meeting, Alan Isaac, the ICC’s president, announced “unanimous support” for a range of principles. In the council’s world of Orwellian Newspeak, this meant that there had been no vote and a range of concessions had been granted, to ensure a smooth passing of the plan at its next meeting on February 8th.

As a result of the negotiations, the idea of two-tier Test cricket has been abandoned. So has the possibility, which so worried Bangladesh, that one of the full members could be relegated and replaced by an associate. A Test cricket fund, which will disburse financial support to smaller members, will now also support South Africa, currently the top-ranked Test team in the world. Finally, a proposed executive committee to decide ICC policy will include five members, not just the three from India, England and Australia.

In exchange for these concessions, which were little more than marginal quibbles, the Big Three have gained hugely. Based on the reasonable assumption that total ICC revenue in the next eight years will be around $2.5 billion, Wisden Indiahas calculated that the boards of England, Australia and India will collectively be around $520m better off than they would have been had the existing distribution of revenue been maintained. The vast majority of this sum, around $450m, will go to India. Other full members and the associates will be $585m worse off.

The Big Three maintained their insistence that the Future Tours Programme be abandoned. Instead, fixtures will be negotiated bilaterally. India, especially, has become increasingly negligent in fulfilling the commitments that it does not fancy. Most recently, it cancelled an away series in South Africa in order to host Sachin Tendulkar’s final Tests at home. This is hugely important because, outside of money received from the ICC, the biggest source of income for most teams is selling television coverage of a visit from India back to Indian broadcasters. With a smaller proportion of total revenue and no guaranteed income from foreign-rights sales, the prospects of these teams improving, or even maintaining, a competitive edge are diminishing fast.

Further carrots may yet be dangled in front of smaller nations. England will talk up the prospect of Tests with Ireland; India with Pakistan. But such matters are inconsequential when compared with the long-term harm should the deal be approved, as seems inevitable. Instead of spreading enthusiasm for the sport around the world, it will concentrate interest in a small group of nations, a process that seems unsustainable. The game may eat itself. For now, cricket’s claim to be the world’s second favourite sport is just about arguable. It is unlikely to be for much longer.