CA, ICC to hold talks over events impasse

SYDNEY: Australia’s first Boxing Day Test with New Zealand in 32 years will take place in the wake of critical talks between Cricket Australia and the ICC, aimed at resolving an impasse over global events for the next international cycle.

Financial woes among the majority of Full Member countries have caused them to be increasingly reliant upon cash distributions from ICC events, pushing the global body’s new chief executive Manu Sawhney to lobby for the return of an extra event in the next cycle so that there is a men’s tournament — either a Twenty20 World Cup, 50-over World Cup or shorter, Champions Trophy style 50-over competition — every year.

New Zealand’s presence on Boxing Day will be poignant to the moment, for their finances stand as a signal example. Shifting ICC distributions have caused one of cricket’s smaller boards to return financial losses of NZD 1.3 million (USD 846,000 approx) for 2018-19 (as against a projected profit of NZD 1 million) after deficits of $3.5 million in 2018 and $9.3 million in 2017. The most recent loss was all the more troubling for the fact that the 2018-19 season featured an inbound India tour.

However CA, the BCCI and the ECB, cricket’s three richest boards, have indicated their hesitance about placing the extra event in the next cycle, already crushed as it is by domestic Twenty20 tournaments and the advent of Test and ODI leagues.

These reservations have been expressed by the BCCI’s leadership, the ECB’s chairman Colin Graves, and CA’s chairman Earl Eddings and chief executive Kevin Roberts.

“We’ve got Manu Sawhney, the ICC CEO, coming out in a couple of weeks to work through it,” Eddings told Cricinfo.

“We’ve got a responsibility as one of the leading countries to make the ICC strong and the countries who are part of the ICC. But we’ve also got to balance that with our own requirements around bilateral cricket. One of the challenges we have is Australia relies more on bilateral cricket than the ICC, where for a lot of countries it is the other way round. So just trying to find the balance.

“You’ve got more T20 competitions spreading around the world, you’ve got the burgeoning IPL and you’ve got our bilateral cricket. More importantly, what does that mean to the players and from a player welfare perspective. So you’ve got all these challenges to try to work through.

“I think there’s a solution there, I don’t know what it is yet, but we’ll keep talking to the ICC and other countries to find a way to one, maximise the opportunities for the ICC and its members but also look after the needs of bilateral cricket and most importantly protect the sanctity of Test cricket.

“We’re working through it with the ICC at the moment, that’s why Manu’s coming down, let’s sit down and work out what the options are, put some of the minutiae around it, so people can make a more informed decision. The ICC in concept approved it, subject to making sure it doesn’t impact on bilateral cricket, where you play, how you play it, how you bid for it.”