Major blow for Indian cricket as ICC abolishes Big 3 model

DUBAI - The Indian Cricket Board's hegemony in world cricket on Wednesday came under severe threat as the 'richest' board was comprehensively out-voted on governance structure and revenue model at the ICC Board Meeting in Dubai.

According to local media reports, BCCI will lose a large part of the share from ICC's revenues that it was to receive as part of the Big Three financial model.

A meeting of the International Cricket Council Board was held during which voting took place on the new financial model which was passed 9-1 with only BCCI voting against it.

The change in governance model was passed with 8-2, with only the Sri Lankan board and the BCCI voting against the change in governance.

N Srinivasan had put in place the Big Three model in 2014 under his chairmanship. India will now only receive $290 million from the new financial model, a little more than half the amount the board had wanted.

Under the Big Three model, India were set to receive a whopping amount of $ 570 million. India, Australia and England were the primary earner from the former financial model which received flak from other member nations.

"Yes, the voting is over. It was 8-2 in favour of revamped revenue model and 9-1 in favour of constitutional changes," said a senior BCCI official. The BCCI has voted against both as we had, in principle, maintained that all these changes are completely unacceptable for us."

The BCCI official stated that all options were still open for the Indian cricket board.

"At this point, we can only say that all options are open for us. We would have to go back to our SGM and apprise the members of the situation," he said.

What was more embarrassing for the BCCI was the fact that even the votes of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, which the Indian cricket board felt it would get, went the other way around.

"Strangely Bangladesh also went the other way. Today at the meeting, Manohar, in fact, said that the USD 290 million is a ‘take it or leave it’ offer," said the angry BCCI official.