I'm there to protect the ICC's interests, and not the BCCI's: Shashank Manohar

Shashank Manohar popularity among BCCI office-holders has gone down drastically ever since he became the ICC president. The reason it is said that under his charge, the ICC has been working against the interests of the BCCI. The BCCI’s relationship with the world cricket body has deteriorated in the past one year.

Many differences have cropped up between the apex cricketing body and the high-profile cricket board. Two-tier Test system and centralized marketing of the global broadcast rights for bilateral series were the two very recent issues. Speaking exclusively from Nagpur, the 58-year-old clarified his stance saying that his responsibility is that of an ICC president at the moment and he is there to look after ICC’s interests.

“I don’t know about what anyone in the BCCI is saying. As an independent chairman of the world body, I’m there to protect the ICC’s interests, and not the BCCI’s. I have been elected by all the directors of various countries.”

The BCCI is upset that the ICC has earmarked a budget of $135 million (approx) as the organizational cost for the 2017 Champions Trophy in England, whereas India received only $45 million for organizing the WorldT20 earlier this year. Manohar, however, says that the numbers doing their rounds in the media is wrong and over hyped.

“This $135 million is a factually wrong figure that the media has reported. I don’t know from where it was arrived at. The budget for the 2016 WorldT20 was $55 million, which included the production cost too.”

“The budget that has been earmarked for the Champions Trophy is $46 million, which includes the production cost for the event. You must remember that the cost of accommodation and travel is much more in England than in India.”

The above mention strife between India and the ICC has grown to such extent that the BCCI has threatened to pull out of the Champions Trophy next year. When asked about his opinion regarding this news, he refused to comment on it.

Of late, the ICC has been drawing a lot of flak over the two-tier Test system and centralized marketing of the broadcast rights of bilateral series. It’s rumored that both Manohar and the ICC backed the introduction of the two-tier system in Test cricket. Manohar, however, states that these media report ar false. The two-tier proposal had to be dropped by the ICC eventually due to strong opposition from BCCI.

“For the last four days I’m looking at the papers. Now I can tell as a fact, this issue was raised by Cricket South Africa and Cricket Australia and came up at the CEC meeting in Edinburgh (earlier this year).”

“Being the chairman of the ICC, I don’t attend the CEC meetings, but I was specifically called for this agenda item. I said at the meeting that the ICC is not empowered to look into this because these bilateral rights are rights belonging to home boards and it’s for them to decide what to do. The ICC has nothing to say in this. This matter can’t be deliberated on the ICC platform.”

“The same thing was told at the board of directors meeting. Even the September 6 and 7 meetings (in Dubai) weren’t official ICC meetings which were called by the ICC. At the Annual Conference I had said that the ICC can be a facilitator for member boards. Mr Ajay Shirke and Rahul Johri were present at the CEC meeting and Mr Thakur was present at the directors meeting. So (they) are aware of all that transpired.”

“On this background, I fail to see which sources the media is quoting and saying that the two-tier Test system is the brainchild of the ICC.”

“I said at the meeting that the decline in crowd attendance for Test matches is not because there’s no content. What should be done is a survey. You should find out why the popularity of Test cricket has diminished. For that you will have to interview people who watch T20 games or ODI games.”

“Because there the stadiums are full, so those people are interested in watching the game of cricket. In earlier days, there were only about five Tests in two years’ time. There was no television. So people used to go and stadiums used to be full. But today, for all 365 days, there’s some game going on somewhere in the world. So you can watch a game of cricket anytime, any day.”