BCB chief Nazmul Hassan has told TV reporters in Bangladesh: “Mr Shashank Manohar has said he wants to give away a percentage from India’s behalf.” © AFP
At the recent ICC Board meeting in Dubai, chairman Shashank Manohar discussed the possibility of giving 6% of India’s 22% share of ICC revenues back to the world body, according to BCB president Nazmul Hassan. The BCB president made the statement while speaking to TV reporters in Bangladesh on Saturday but did not respond to calls from ESPNcricinfo for comments. Manohar, too, could not be reached.
According to Hassan, and two other directors of Full Member boards who attended the meetings which finished on Thursday in Dubai, Manohar told the ICC Board that he would speak to the BCCI about giving 6% of the revenue earned by the Indian board to other Full Members outside the Big 3 group.
“Mr Shashank Manohar has said he wants to give away a percentage from India’s behalf. He said he will speak to his board and if he gets approval, he said he will give around 6% of the money,” Hassan told reporters in Bangladesh. “Shashank Manohar is a logical man. He thought that if India gives away 6%, it would help those countries below them. But first he has to get this approved by the board.”
About a month after he became the BCCI president and, by extension, the ICC chairman, Manohar made a statement in a personal capacity, disagreeing with the constitutional revamp carried out in 2014 in controversial circumstances which allowed the BCCI, the ECB and Cricket Australia more authority and a greater share of profits in the ICC.
“I do not agree with the Big 3 countries bullying the ICC,” Manohar said upon returning from Dubai after his first visit to the ICC headquarters in Dubai in November. “Because it is nice to say that India (BCCI) will get 22% of the total revenue of the ICC but you cannot make the poor poorer and the rich richer, only because you have the clout. The ICC runs cricket throughout the world.”
After the Board meeting on Thursday, the ICC stated in a media release that Manohar would head a five-member steering committee that would review the 2014 restructure of the ICC carried out by the trio of Srinivasan, then ECB chairman Giles Clarke and former CA chairman Wally Edwards in 2014.
“We need to revisit the Big 3 decisions. And stop calling it Big 3 from now onwards. He [Manohar] was very, very particular about that. Every member has equal rights,” a Full Member director, who was present at the ICC Board meeting, said.
According to this official, Clarke, who is now the ECB president, remained quiet throughout the board meeting. Cricket Australian chairman David Peever, though, is understood to be on board with Manohar’s idea to roll back the revamp.
The steering committee will have on board chiefs of the BCCI, the ECB and CA, and Manohar has asked all 10 Full Members to give their own comments on the issues they had with the resolutions passed in 2014. The committee will present its first report at the next round of ICC board meetings, scheduled to be held from April 16.
“There is a genuine appetite to revisit the financial model to better share the ICC funds,” said a senior official of second Full Member country.
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo