The Bertus de Jong Column

When Elephants Fight...

When elephants fight, as the saying goes, it's the grass that suffers. With next week's ICC Dubai Board meeting concerning constitutional, financial and structural reforms shaping up as a almighty dust-up among the ICC's big beasts, fans of Associates cricket have good reason to worry, in this case none more so than the Dutch, the Scots and the Irish.



The raft of reforms, both structural and financial, that were agreed to in principle at the ICC's last meeting in February were something of a mixed bag for European Associates. Certainly the prospect of regional qualification for the World T20 will have been greeted with rather less enthusiasm than on the other side of the Atlantic, and at first glance the proposed financial restructuring looks of interest only to the Irish, who stand to receive a substantial payout.



Similarly the proposed 9+3 Test league structure and the implied promotion of Afghanistan and Ireland to Test Status and conceivably Full Membership down the line, though crucial to Ireland (especially now that the chances of the claiming the Intercontinental Cup have receded), are of little concern to the Netherlands or Scotland.



But the other, less headline-grabbing proposal for international cricket - a 13-team ODI league featuring the full members, Ireland, Afghanistan and the winner of the World Cricket League Championship - could be of enormous significance to either the Netherlands or Scotland, and on closer inspection the envisaged financial reforms are not without consequence for Associates Cricket, giving the Dutch and Scots good reason to fear the possibility of the deal unravelling when the ICC meets again later this month – as looks increasingly likely.



In February two hard-fought wins away in Hong Kong saw the Netherlands claim pole position in the World Cricket League Championship, and with closest rivals Papua New Guinea sliding to defeat in the UAE the Dutch are now just four wins away from securing the championship and, in principle, the coveted 13th spot in the as-yet-hypothetical ODI league. The Scots are now best placed to catch them, with two games in hand at home against last-placed Namibia they could get within a point of the Netherlands going into the last two rounds.



The proposed 13-team 50-over league would be played over 3 years and see the top 8 teams qualifying for the World Cup automatically, with the remaining 5 dropping back to the Qualifier. More important than a potential WC qualifying route however, would be the guaranteed fixtures that inclusion in such a league would provide. With each team playing every other across six home series and six away, each comprising three matches, the league would mean a total of 36 guaranteed ODIs across three years - of which 30 would be against full members.



For the Dutch, it would mean more bilateral ODIs against full members in the space of three years than they have previously played in their entire history. Aside from the likely participation grant from the ICC, the effect of such a guaranteed schedule on a board such as the KNCB or Cricket Scotland's ability to generate revenue independently through sponsors, rights sales and government investment would be difficult to overstate.



For the Netherlands, who have been without a main backer since losing ABN AMRO two years ago, the league would be “concrete product” to sell to potential sponsors, says KNCB Chair Betty Timmer. Despite representing a potentially enormous administrative challenge, qualification for the league would be an opportunity to comprehensively professionalise the Dutch set up, with real long-term consequences for the development of the sport in the Netherlands. The guaranteed playing schedule would both require and enable the extension of central contracts beyond the current handful of players and, crucially, make “professional cricketer” a viable career for aspiring young players, Timmer explains.



For the Irish, the proposed double promotion with Afghanistan is beginning to look to the more pessimistic like something of a last chance. The humiliation in Greater Noida not only leaves them a point adrift of the Afghans in the Intercontinental Cup with two rounds to go, but is arguably indicative that, with the passing of a golden generation, the decade-long campaign for Test Status is beginning to run out of steam.



For Ireland, the reforms to the distribution of ICC revenues are also of enormous significance, as the proposed new distribution model would see them, together with Afghanistan, afforded a share of the payouts – estimated to be worth some $50 million over the course of the cycle.

But it is principally these reforms, and the manner they were arrived at, that has so angered the BCCI and left the entire proposal in jeopardy. Compared to the model forced through under the so-called “Big 3” reforms back in January of 2014, the BCCI stand to lose as much as $290 million over the eight year period. Though the remaining $260-290 million that it stands to pocket from the new proposal is easily still more than double its hypothetical share under the status quo ante Big 3 model, and some five times its actual earnings from the last cycle, the BCCI nonetheless feel they have been ambushed, and not without reason.



The BCCI, in a state of some internal turmoil owing to the fallout from the Lodha Committee's report and subsequent removal of BCCI president Anurag Thakur and secretary Ajay Shirke by the Indian Supreme Court, was kept out of the working group that drew up the reforms, and the proposal was brought to the table in February in spite of their request to defer the vote. Vikram Limaye, the new court-appointed representative to the ICC, had been in the job less than a week.



The proposals were duly passed “in principle” by a vote of 7-2, with Sri Lanka joining India in opposition and Zimbabwe abstaining. Since then, the BCCI has been loudly complaining that the reforms were rammed through without due consultation, and that the new revenue distribution model is based on figures that are essentially arbitrary and lack any objective arithmetic basis. The same, of course, was true of the Big 3 reforms, but pointing out the BCCI's hypocrisy is unlikely to sway any votes come the 24th of this month, when in all likelihood the Indian Board will find the requisite support to unpick the agreement or scotch it entirely.



It is difficult to imagine that the prospect played no role in the ICC's beleaguered Chairman, Shashank Manohar, to resign for “personal reasons” in March, only to be persuaded to stay on at least until this month's decisive meeting. It remains to be seen, however, how much of his vision will make it through next week.



In addition to the unseemly way in which they were blindsided by the proposals, and the reduction in their share of the revenues, the BCCI are understood to oppose another alteration to the model – one which has gone largely unreported. Under the model envisaged by the working group, the ICC's members would not be entitled to a fixed share of revenues, but rather of the surplus after the ICC's costs have been met.



The previous model allotted the ICC a fixed budget of some $800 million plus $70 million for the now-abolished Test Fund, whilst the 6% top-line allocation for ICC development projects was scrapped entirely. The new model sees the ICC's projected budget increased by some $160 million, of which $60 million is earmarked as a “contingency fund”.



The mooted increase in the ICC's own budget is accounted as event costs and contingency funding, but any increase in discretionary spending on the part of the ICC bodes well for developing cricket countries, especially if the event costs are bound up in funding regional or age group tournaments. The gradual erosion of the role (and budget) of ICC Europe in general and specifically the reduction in youth and regional competitions is a trend that European Associates would gladly see reversed. But the change has not gone unnoticed, and there is justifiable concern in Mumbai at the uncertainty that the change implies for the actual size of the surplus and consequently members' own payouts, which would be defined as a fixed percentage of the surplus rather than revenues – effectively transferring risk from the ICC to member boards.



The BCCI's rhetoric in the run up to next week's meeting has grown increasingly belligerent, refusing to confirm India's participation in the Champion's Trophy until after the meeting and hinting that its commitment to the Future Tours Programme is contingent on the preservation of the 2014 financial and governance model. Following a Special General Meeting on Tuesday, the board unanimously agreed to seek a deferral of any change to the existing arrangements until the ICC's AGM in June.



As yet the BCCI has made no explicit statement opposing the reforms to the international playing schedule which include Ireland's promotion and the 13-team ODI league, and there is good reason to hope that these structural issues will be treated separately from financial and governance questions, and thus escape the BCCI's ire. It is by no means certain, however, that the aggrieved Indian representatives will not simply tear up the February agreement in its entirety.



Back in 2014 the privately offered justification for the lengths to which the ICC went to appease Indian demands was “It's better to have them in the tent pissing out than outside pissing in.” If we allow ourselves to stretch a metaphor, the BCCI has stormed out of that figurative tent and is now audibly unzipping. And it's the European Associates sitting closest to the door.