India, the biggest cricketing nation, a nation where cricket is worshiped. But today the world of cricket shrank instead of expanding and the sole reason behind it is India or BCCI.
BCCI has been controlling ICC and is the most influential board present today. But was it always like this?
The answer to this question is no, cricket was once run and ruled by the one’s who invented it, England.
The first three cricket world cups 1975, 1979 and 1983, were hosted by ECB and all the rules were set by them and it seemed back then that ICC world cups would only be hosted by England as they were the only board with the experience, capabilities and funding to host such a tournament.
But things changed when India unexpectedly reached the final of 83 world cup but yet ECB declined the request of two extra ticket made by the then chairman of BCCI, N. K. P. Salve.
No one thought India could beat the mighty West-Indies who were the defending champions.
But India did the impossible and won against all the odds. India became the first Asian country to win the world cup. And this was the turning point of world cricket.
Ego of N.K.P Salve
When N.K.P. Salve was denied the request of only two extra tickets he took it personally and decided to do something about it and teach ECB a lesson.
So, after winning the 83 world cup N.K.P. Salve went back to Asia and decided to make Asia the powerhouse of cricket.
BCCI then joined hands with Sri Lankan cricket board and Pakistan cricket board to form Asian cricket committee and they hosted the Asia Cup just to prove a point that Asian countries are also capable of hosting big events.
But it was not enough to get the hosting rights for ICC world cup at least not solely.
BCCI proposed to Pakistan cricket board that they should together host the world cup and PCB agreed to that.
But yet it was not certain or decided that the world cup would be hosted in India and Pakistan. Also, there was a money issue, which was needed to host a cricket world cup.
So, the chairperson of BCCI N.K.P. Salve approached a man who was capable to sponsor such a big amount, that person was Dhirubhai Ambani, and he agreed to finance the world cup.
At the next ICC meeting N.K.P. Salve proposed that the world cup should be hosted in India and Pakistan.
But England opposed to this saying that India didn’t have the experience and neither did they had the money to host it.
N.K.P. Salve had the money secured and at that time he proposed the rule for which today world cup is being hosted by different countries. Mr. N.K.P Salve proposed that there should be a rotation policy which will allow the other members of ICC to have a chance to host the world cup and not only England.
Upon hearing this proposal Australian cricket board and New Zealand cricket board agreed with BCCI and after the voting took place, 1987 world cup was hosted by India and Pakistan, and Australia won that world cup.
Everything and the cricket world was fine till this point but what happened afterwards changed the picture of this sport.
Broadcasting rights and BCCI
In 1991, BCCI got to know of the term called “Broadcasting Rights”, before this BCCI used to pay Doordarshan to broadcast their matches.
At that time, BCCI administrator was Jagmohan Dalmiya, he found out that Broadcasting rights can be sold and tons of money can be earned through this. Before BCCI knew about this money making process, the only earning BCCI was getting was through ticket sales and ads.
Once Dalmiya came to know about the Broadcasting rights the first broad casting right he sold was worth $2,00,000, which was sold to South African state television during the South African tour of India in 1991.
Now, the question rises why would any TV channel buy the broadcasting rights of India cricket team playing, paying such a heavy sum?
Answer to that would be, because amongst the 1 billion cricket fans or viewers, 90% of those viewers are from India.
Which means the matches India played used to get the highest viewership and no other team would get as much viewership as the Indian cricket team playing would get and that to by far.
Once Dalmiya realized this, there was no looking back for BCCI, they exploited this advantage of theirs to mend ICC as per their wish and to earn absurd amount of money.
This is when the world of cricket changed forever. From this point it was no longer about the game, from this point it was about money making.
Rise of BCCI and Jagmohan Dalmiya
According to the rotation policy the 1996 world cup was supposed to be hosted by England but a broadcaster named Marcus Mascarenes offered BCCI $14 million for the broadcasting rights if the 96 world cup would be hosted in India.
Dalmiya liked this offer and although it was pre decided that the 96 world cup will be hosted by England, but during every world cup a guarantee money had to be offered by the hosting nation, England had the guarantee money that was required but BCCI offered a greater amount of guarantee money which made ICC change their decision and the hosting rights were given to BCCI or India.
Just like that for the first time India bought ICC with money and started to mend the rules with the power of its money and viewers.
But Dalmiya was not going to stop there, he decided that to take full control of ICC, an Asian needed to be the head or chairman of ICC, an Indian to be exact.
But England would never let a non-British be the chairman of ICC as they had control over the full members of the board.
What Dalmiya did was he found out a loophole. During that time the associate members had the right to cast one vote each in the ICC chairman elections but due to shortage of funds they could not be present in the meeting for the voting.
Dalmiya took that responsibility upon his shoulders, and invited all the associate members bearing all of their expenses, as a result Dalmiya received all the votes of the associate members and won the chairman elections of 1997 by acquiring 16 votes and became the first Asian to be elected the chairman of ICC.
The Bully named BCCI
After 1997 BCCI started to bend the rules as per their comfort. During the second Test match of 2001 test series between India and South Africa, match referee Mike Denese suspended six players of the Indian team including Captain Sourav Ganguly and the greatest batsman of India Sachin Tendulka was also penalized for tempering the ball.
BCCI and Indian cricket fans couldn’t take this decision and started to protest against it, instead of abiding by the ICC rules BCCI went and complained against such bans and asked ICC to move Mike Denese as the referee of the final Test.
ICC didn’t approve of that but it was BCCI, and they decided to play the third Test without the involvement of ICC and that match was declared as an unofficial Test match.
How did India do that? By the power of money and broadcasting right. They (BCCI) threatened SA cricket board that if they didn’t play then SA cricket board would have to lose $8 million which they were supposed to get from the broadcasting rights, hence South Africa was forced to play that match under the conditions of BCCI. This how BCCI started to bully the entire world of cricket.
After BCCI realized they had the power of viewership and the amount of money that power brought them, BCCI started to destroy this game and turned it into a money printing machine which would print money for them and in front of the revenue BCCI was generating ICC and the cricket world was helpless.
It was no longer about the game or ethics or joy of the game, BCCI made this game a gamble, a source of earning millions and billions.
Introduction of IPL
To earn even more and gain more power, BCCI introduced the gambling called IPL (Indian Premiere League). IPL has become the second richest league in the world with a worth of $15 billion. Along with India a lot of other cricketing nations also introduced their own cricket leagues but none came close to IPL.
Why? Again because of viewership.
Where players around the globe came and participated in IPL, BCCI imposed a ban that no Indian player can go and play in the cricket leagues of other countries and because of this the other cricket league could not generate much money as without Indian cricketers they could not fetch enough views.
BCCI used this power of them to the fullest, the power of viewers as they kind of own the 90% of the viewers that watch cricket. But why does the other boards let their players play in IPL? And why do they listen to what BCCI says?
Simple answer of these questions will be again viewers, the lion shares of revenue any board generates comes from their viewership and by selling broadcasting rights.
As India has the highest numbers of viewers, broadcasting rights can be sold at a higher rate when Indian cricket team tours other countries, and if BCCI decides to not tour certain countries, then those countries will struggle to generate revenue and to sell the broadcasting rights.
Today if you turn on any sports channel the most aired matches are those which India have played and the sole reason behind that is the viewers that Indian cricket team attracts.
For this reason, all the other members of ICC cannot go against what BCCI says or are afraid to. Because of such numbers of viewers, BCCI bullies the other cricket boards and forces them to abide by what gives advantage to BCCI.
The revenue shark BCCI
Now let us look into the funding process of ICC. Before 2014 ICC used to distribute the revenue, they generated to the 12 full-time members in an equal ratio.
But in 2014 BCCI proposed that as ICC generated 75% of their revenue because of the viewership of Indian cricket team, so BCCI should get the lion share of the generated revenue and they took England and Australia on their side to form the BIG 3.
And since 2014 BCCI gets 38% of the total revenue while England and Australia together get 12% and the other 50% revenue is shared equally to the other nine full time members.
This decision changed the landscape of the game forever. For the other full-time members to develop cricket in their countries, they needed more funds compared to the BIG 3 but because of what BCCI did, it reversed and instead of getting more the other full-time members got less funds and because of that many cricket boards are still unable to produce better players and build a better team.
Not only full-time member, associate members also fell behind as since then the associate members got even lesser funds to develop the game in their countries and as a result the world of cricket shrank day by day.
To prove this point you can look at the 2007 ICC world cup and 2023 ICC world cup, where in 2007, 16 teams participated in the world cup, in 2023 only 10 teams participated.
If you compare that to FIFA world cup then you can see that in 2006, 32 teams had participated in the world cup, while in the 2026 world cup 48 teams are going to participate.
So, FIFA grew more and became broader where teams like Turkey, Egypt and Morocco got the funds and developed football in their countries rapidly and are now participating in the biggest stage of the game.
On the other hand, ICC shrank instead of getting bigger where development of associate teams is near to zero. And this credit goes to BCCI.
BCCI the destroyers of the game
With the power of money and viewership BCCI destroyed the game of cricket. They thought about revenue generation instead of developing and expanding the game.
They centralized the revenue so that they could become richer and gain more power. Because of such policies of BCCI stated above, today the world of cricket has become smaller and smaller.
What lies in future is hard to tell but if BCCI continues to rule the system like they have been doing since 1991 then development of this game is far-fetched.
This game was better when it was controlled and monitored by the ones who invented it, England but because for BCCI it is not a game or not a religion like it is for the Indian viewers.
For BCCI cricket is nothing but a project to make more and more money, for them it is a business and because of them this game has lost the joy and popularity it once had.
BCCI the destroyers of the game called CRICKET!
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