Focus
R. Mohan
Sharad Pawar may win ICC power game
June 29, 2007
It would surprise no one if the announcement comes sometime this month that Sharad Pawar has been voted in as the president of the International Cricket Council. So riven is cricket with the politics of its governance and its economics driven by television deals that the dominant player in both fields, India, is favoured to take over the reins.
It is a moot point whether the very busy politician that the Union agriculture minister is will have the time to provide the leadership to a game that needs it most at a time when discontent is prevalent at all levels after a shambolic World Cup in the Caribbean.
The BCCI's offshore TV deal with Zee may have been doomed to fail the moment the media house chose to start up a parallel Indian Cricket League. But that may not come in the way of the board wooing the votes to split the 3-3 tie in a kind of electoral-college early contest between Sharad Pawar and ECB's David Morgan.
The BCCI's master plan is to polarise the ICC votes into a racial divide in which the white nations - Australia, New Zealand and England - will stand isolated. In a brazen attempt to achieve such ends, the BCCI switched South Africa for Australia in planned offshore matches in Ireland.
Zimbabwe may not have a cricketer in the top 100 among batsmen or bowlers in world cricket today. It may have lost its Test status for sheer incompetence on the field and divisive politics off it that made a whole load of cricketers either flee the country to remain unwilling to play for Zimbabwe. But, significantly, it has a vote and a say in who will be ICC president.
South Africa and Zimbabwe, who were represented by John Blair in preliminary voting among six respected administrators, went with the white bloc. That could change dramatically in direct voting that may be held at the ICC meeting in London in June to split the tie.
In the hope of swinging these votes in favour of Pawar, BCCI has dangled the offshore series carrot to South Africa and it will also fight any moves to disenfranchise Zimbabwe while also resisting any possible moves by the white bloc to grant Ireland Test status and give it a vote.
The white bloc would rather have the New Zealander Sir John Anderson chairing the ICC meeting as an interim president than Ehsan Mani, the London-based Pakistan administrator who was formerly ICC president. A move is also afoot to try and woo the vote of the associate members and affiliates away from India by letting Malaysia's Prince Tunku Imran be the interim president.
What the white bloc questions is whether Pawar would have the time to take in ICC duties as well as run the BCCI while also being his country's agriculture minister. It has been pointed out that in the last 12 months, Pawar attended to ICC work for a whole 80 minutes.
The Indian board's thrust for the top cricket admin job is premised upon its financial clout with well over 70 per cent of the game's global income coming from India or multi-national companies aiming their advertisements at the increasingly affluent Indian middle class. The health of multi-team international events is also quite dependent on the lead provided by Indian markets.
Considered every which way, India is the predominant player in world cricket, regardless of how its national team performs. Also, the largely white man-dominated ICC administration was found to be way short of expertise at the World Cup. The final was grossly mishandled by the ICC's much celebrated elite team of match referee and umpires leading to so much dissatisfaction that players are even threatening to boycott events if the administration carries on as is its wont.
Pawar has earned a name as administrator by being able to freely delegate tasks to fellow men and former players. Heading the ICC at a delicate time in its history is a different matter altogether. Some of Pawar's henchmen, who have to help him tackle his ICC tasks are either too rustic or too narrow in their cricket vision, too buffoonish or too autocratic.
In his term, Jagmohan Dalmiya may not have provided the ICC most effective leadership, particularly during the corruption crisis. But at least he was a hands-on administrator who handled the details with aplomb. Pawar's innings may come at an even more restive time in cricket when players are unhappy, TV stake-holders are jittery and fans are disillusioned after a vacuous World Cup.
It is a moot point whether the very busy politician that the Union agriculture minister is will have the time to provide the leadership to a game that needs it most at a time when discontent is prevalent at all levels after a shambolic World Cup in the Caribbean.
The BCCI's offshore TV deal with Zee may have been doomed to fail the moment the media house chose to start up a parallel Indian Cricket League. But that may not come in the way of the board wooing the votes to split the 3-3 tie in a kind of electoral-college early contest between Sharad Pawar and ECB's David Morgan.
The BCCI's master plan is to polarise the ICC votes into a racial divide in which the white nations - Australia, New Zealand and England - will stand isolated. In a brazen attempt to achieve such ends, the BCCI switched South Africa for Australia in planned offshore matches in Ireland.
Zimbabwe may not have a cricketer in the top 100 among batsmen or bowlers in world cricket today. It may have lost its Test status for sheer incompetence on the field and divisive politics off it that made a whole load of cricketers either flee the country to remain unwilling to play for Zimbabwe. But, significantly, it has a vote and a say in who will be ICC president.
South Africa and Zimbabwe, who were represented by John Blair in preliminary voting among six respected administrators, went with the white bloc. That could change dramatically in direct voting that may be held at the ICC meeting in London in June to split the tie.
In the hope of swinging these votes in favour of Pawar, BCCI has dangled the offshore series carrot to South Africa and it will also fight any moves to disenfranchise Zimbabwe while also resisting any possible moves by the white bloc to grant Ireland Test status and give it a vote.
The white bloc would rather have the New Zealander Sir John Anderson chairing the ICC meeting as an interim president than Ehsan Mani, the London-based Pakistan administrator who was formerly ICC president. A move is also afoot to try and woo the vote of the associate members and affiliates away from India by letting Malaysia's Prince Tunku Imran be the interim president.
What the white bloc questions is whether Pawar would have the time to take in ICC duties as well as run the BCCI while also being his country's agriculture minister. It has been pointed out that in the last 12 months, Pawar attended to ICC work for a whole 80 minutes.
The Indian board's thrust for the top cricket admin job is premised upon its financial clout with well over 70 per cent of the game's global income coming from India or multi-national companies aiming their advertisements at the increasingly affluent Indian middle class. The health of multi-team international events is also quite dependent on the lead provided by Indian markets.
Considered every which way, India is the predominant player in world cricket, regardless of how its national team performs. Also, the largely white man-dominated ICC administration was found to be way short of expertise at the World Cup. The final was grossly mishandled by the ICC's much celebrated elite team of match referee and umpires leading to so much dissatisfaction that players are even threatening to boycott events if the administration carries on as is its wont.
Pawar has earned a name as administrator by being able to freely delegate tasks to fellow men and former players. Heading the ICC at a delicate time in its history is a different matter altogether. Some of Pawar's henchmen, who have to help him tackle his ICC tasks are either too rustic or too narrow in their cricket vision, too buffoonish or too autocratic.
In his term, Jagmohan Dalmiya may not have provided the ICC most effective leadership, particularly during the corruption crisis. But at least he was a hands-on administrator who handled the details with aplomb. Pawar's innings may come at an even more restive time in cricket when players are unhappy, TV stake-holders are jittery and fans are disillusioned after a vacuous World Cup.
