BCCI concerned about ICC funding Zimbabwe Cricket

Zimbabwean cricket is currently in the middle of a tumultuous phase owing to reasons both on and off the field. They recently played a T20I triangular series involving Pakistan and Australia and couldn’t garner even one victory. Hamilton Masakadza and Co were also clean swept by the Men in Green, captained by Sarfraz Ahmed, in the five-match ODI series at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.

Prior to the start of the T20I series, a number of players including the likes of Brendan Taylor, Sikandar Raza, Craig Ervine and Graeme Cremer opted out for the reason that the cricket board didn’t pay them their respective salaries and match fees. Recently, their cricket board has asked for monetary help from the International Cricket Council (ICC) in order for them to pay the cricketers their pending dues.

ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar accepted their request in the annual conference in Dublin on July 2. However, the same has set the cat amongst the pigeons in the Board of Control for Cricket in India and they have questioned the world’s apex cricket board about their decision to lend their helping hand to Zimbabwe. An official of the world’s richest cricket board talked about the dismal state of the economic and political scenario in the country.

These conditions were too tempting for the ICC governance

“Zimbabwe Cricket has been in dire straits on account of bad governance decisions that have left them debt-ridden. They found themselves in a situation where any income was only being expended in paying the interests for the debt.

The political and economic atmosphere in their country was also not conducive to revenue generation. The weakening of BCCI left them without an influential friend to help them in their time of continuing need,” a BCCI was quoted as saying in Cricket Next.

“The BCCI had needed 4 votes to stem the governance and financial changes in the ICC and Zimbabwe had been India’s friend. However, these conditions were too tempting for the ICC governance brass to ignore and therein started the process of offering Zimbabwe greater revenue and such decisions have always been proximate to meetings where an important decision is taken,” the official added.

“What it says for the principles and policies of the ICC is not very flattering. If you will notice, this decision had been taken on the same day when the decision to change the format of the Champions Trophy was considered,” he mentioned.

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