How India is killing cricket

Cricket is a sport we Indians follow like a religion. But it is being killed slowly. The global popularity of cricket is declining, with the ICC World Cup shrinking from 16 teams in 2007 to just 10 in 2023. In contrast, the FIFA World Cup has expanded from 32 teams in 2006 to 48 in 2026. Cricket also isn't a part of the Olympics yet because of this reason mainly.

At the heart of this decline lies the Indian cricketing board, the BCCI . It is the richest cricketing board in the world and owns the 2nd most valuable sports league worldwide, the IPL - Indian Premier League . But BCCI is notoriously famous for its bullying and its actions have caused the international cricket to become more and more confined, just to India.

The emergence of ICC and World Cup

Cricket is a sport invented by the British and its popularity grew as the Britishers began playing this sport in their colonies, namely West Indies, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka etc. Gradually, the popularity also grew among the domestic audiences of these colonies. Cricket unified the people in colonies together and they viewed cricket as a way of standing head-to-head with the Britishers by defeating them in their own game.

Soon England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) formed ICC with these other cricket boards and started the world cup in 1975. England hosted the first 2 editions of the world cup, both won by West Indies. At the time, the ICC president was the head of ECB and no other country had the financial means of hosting the world cup.

But things would soon change with one single event.

1983 and rise of BCCI

India was considered to be the weakest team in the world and BCCI did not have the money to pay player's full salaries. West Indies was considered to be the only contender to the English cricket team. This was a time when the BCCI president NKP Salve could not get even 2 extra tickets for India's ministers to watch the match live. But, India would win in a historic match against the West Indies in 1983 and bring the trophy home. Soon cricket's popularity increased rapidly in India as this was one of the rare occasions when India would stand out at an international level and become respected. The likes of Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar became gods in India and BCCI would soon begin its rise to power.

The first thing BCCI did was create an Asia cricketing committee with Pakistan and Sri Lanka and start the Asia cup. BCCI proposed a rotational policy for hosting the world cup and proposed India and Pakistan would co-host the 1987 world cup. But hosting a world cup isn't easy. You need to pay guarantee money to participating teams and a huge prize money and proper infrastructure. India managed to co-host the 1987 world cup by a jugaad by bringing Dhirubhai Ambani as a sponsor at the last moment. The world cup was infamously called the "Reliance Cup".

1990s: BCCI from rags to riches

Things would change for BCCI completely in 1991 when South Africa returned to international cricket after 21 years. Their first tour was to India, and South Africans were eager to watch it live. Until then, BCCI paid Doordarshan ?5 lakh to broadcast Indian matches to compensate for their production costs and the concept of television rights was novel to us. For the first time, they realised when in talks with the South African cricket board that they can earn money from broadcasting rights. For the first time, they planned a deal with them to sell for 30,000 dollars for the whole series, not knowing what to ask for. To their surprise, the South African board paid $120,000, the market price at the time.

This was followed by a series of deals with TWI for Hero Cup 1993 and for the India tour of England in 1993. The same Doordarshan now bought the television broadcasting rights for 5 years for a massive 54 million dollars. The BCCI board was soon rich. But as it is rightfully said, people's ideals and values change with money. The BCCI became hungry for power and became greedy.

The 1996 world cup was set to be hosted by England. India was offered 14M dollars by Mark Mascarenhus if the world cup was hosted in India. India co hosted the world cup with Sri Lanka and Pakistan by offering more guarantee money to participant teams in world cup offering them 100K while England offered 60K. But a controversy would erupt in Sri Lanka during the world cup when the central bank of Colombo was bombed. Australia and West Indies refused to play with Sri Lanka due to safety concerns despite the nation ensuring full safety and a clean chit from ICC. This would tempt Jagmohan Dalmiya to change the ICC chairman to an Asian representative.In the 1997 ICC chairman elections, Jagmohan Dalmiya bought the votes of associate ICC members who did not have the money to come and vote in the board meeting. He paid for their travel, accomodation and hosted parties for them.

The 2001 Port Elizabeth Test between India and South Africa was highly controversial. Umpire Mike Denness imposed strict bans on six Indian players, including Sourav Ganguly for excessive appealing and Sachin Tendulkar for ball tampering. The BCCI refuted these claims claiming Sachin was cleaning the seam of the ball and the umpire's decisions were unjust. They demanded Denness's removal, but the ICC didn't comply. Despite this, the match proceeded and was declared unofficial and unrecognised by the ICC. South Africa went along with it because India threatened to withhold 8 million rands in broadcasting rights if they didn't play.

IPL and cricket corruption

In 2008, Lalit Modi with BCCI started the IPL as a fantasy club league in cricket inspired by the likes of Football private clubs in Europe. He famously said "In international cricket, India might win or lose but in IPL, India always wins." highlighting how Indians love to watch their favourite cricketers win. The story of IPL however wasn't all roses and flowers.

IPL was built on the grave of ICL (Indian cricket league) started in 2007 by Zee Entertainment. BCCI infamously killed it by banning players those who play in ICL from domestic national cricket team of whom Ambati Rayudu was a victim. A year later BCCI launched IPL. BCCI realised that every cricket board has its own cricket league and to become a monopoly and retain its power by remaining the richest board, it banned Indian players from playing in other cricket leagues. Instead they brought famous international cricketers in IPL by offering more money.

Report by Lord Woolf and the "Big 3"

In 2014, Lord Woolf, a former British chief justice published a report via PwC on ICC and suggesting governance reforms. The report is attached in the resources below for reference. he pointed out that the structure of full-time members and associate members in ICC needs to change for a better growth of cricket worldwide. Full time members are only 12 countries allowed to play test cricket like India, Australia, Zimbabwe, Pakistan etc and associate members include Neatherlands, China etc. He stated that power in the current system leans towards one country and reduces funding to associate members which does not allow growth for cricket in those countries. For example, China with a population of 1.5 billion was allocated a fund of $30,000 a year.

West Indies cricket board has nearly become bankrupt because they earn major money when countries with big viewership like India, Australia and England tour them but India is scheduled to play only 2 matches with WI for the next 5 years. This report was strongly disagreed upon by BCCI but the player's representative Tim Lay was in favour of it. So BCCI had him removed by electing their own candidate and pressurising other boards that if they vote against India, it will not tour them. This leads to the murder of the sport itself that India loves so much.

Afghanistan is a great example of what can happen if a country is provided adequate funding and the power cricket has. Afghanistan under Taliban rule has children growing up in drugs, terrorism and hate but cricket has provided them a way to vent out their energy in a positive manner. The country performed great in ICC WC 2023 defeating champion nations like Pakistan and almost eliminating Australia.

The response by BCCI to the report was the "Big 3" financial reforms in ICC which restructured the way revenue generated is distributed among participants in ICC. Earlier it was distributed uniformly but now India argues that it brings the majority of viewership and should get a larger cut with Australia and England. Now, India gets a 38% cut, and Australia and England getting nearly 6% cut of the total revenue while remaining is distributed among the rest of the countries. This promotes cricket in countries where cricket is big while killing it in other nations.

Nepotism and User Experience:

A strong nepotism runs in BCCI and state cricketing associations. The Delhi cricketing association is run by Rahul Jaitley, the son of Arun Jaitley. The son of Rajasthan's CM runs the Rajasthan cricketing board. The grandnephew of Sharad Pawar runs Maharashtra cricket board association. The biggest of all is the presidentship of Gujarat cricketing association was transferred from Narendra Modi to Amit Shah, whose son now is the BCCI secretary.

Many district coaches ask players to pay bribes for selection and there is no transparency on how these state associations handle the budget allocated by BCCI of hundreds of crores.

BCCI did not release the schedule of World Cup 2023 till few months before the start of tournament and ground conditions were inappropriate. English cricketers complained that the ground of Dharamshala had large grass patches making it harmful to dive on the field. Fans were unhappy about the cleanliness of largest stadiums of the country like the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad.

Tickets are being mismanaged by BCCI for political purposes. The tickets to matches of India with England and New Zealand were given as free passes by BJP leaders in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Only 32,000 seats were sold in a stadium of capacity of 65,000. Fans with online booked tickets were told to pickup the ticket physically from the counter on the day of the match.

BCCI is turning more and more into a government monopoly like Indian railways where there is no competition. But the fact is BCCI is a private body and classifies as a charitable organisation under Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act. It is worth 23,000 Cr INR and has a revenue of 4700 Cr annually which is not taxable.

Coming back to the decline in number of teams in 2023 WC to 10 from 16 in 2007. This was done by BCCI as in 2007 India eliminated just after 3 matches causing huge losses to broadcasters. By reducing the number of teams playing and formatting such that India plays at least 9 matches, they ensured a huge revenue for themselves.

There is a strong need for reforms in the structure of BCCI and how it distributes funds to state associations. Also, the bureaucracy needs to be replaced by cricketers instead of politicians and businessman who use IPL and World Cups as a money making machine. The decisions need to be taken to promote the spirit of the sport.

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Garvit Gulati

References

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN8qSXHSeis&t=1285s
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWFUuPZXpQo
3. Report by Lord Woolf - https://p.imgci.com/db/DOWNLOAD/0000/0093/woolfe_report.pdf