• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

India, Australia, England attempt to take control of Cricket

Binkley

Binkley

U19 Captain
I have been busy as hell with work, but this pissed me off so much that I scribbled an email to NZC this morning. It is not the most articulate thing I have ever written, and I probably should have read more of this thread first, but I thought is might be of interest to others here:

I would be grateful if you could pass this message to NZC Board members before this week's meeting.

My name is [Binkley] and I am a cricket fan, in fact I was your "Fan of the Year" in [a year that was not this one]. I am also a keen amateur student of political history. Political history tells us that tyranny is not always imposed by an outside force, but more often than not it is initially welcomed by its subjects. The situation when this occurs has been dubbed the "Augustus moment". An "Augustus moment" happens when a democratic form of governance becomes so clogged, so unstable and/or so ineffective that those being governed are happy to give up their rights to a tyrant or an oligarchy in exchange for peace, effective governance and stability. This has never worked out well for those who have ceded their rights, and those rights have never been regained without a massive struggle, conflict and external intervention.

Some modern scholars see an "Augustus moment" happening in places like Egypt and the Ukraine, where democracy looks likely to give way to military dictatorship. Some even see it approaching in the dysfunction of the US House of Representatives. I see it happening at the ICC.

I have heard NZC representatives talk about the fact that India, Australia and England generate more income than the rest of the cricketing nations - indicating that this should give them more rights. But do I have less rights than Gareth Morgan simply because he has more money than me, has a greater income and pays more taxes? No. Is he subject to different laws? No. And there are very good reasons why that is not the case. All men should have equal rights, and equal opportunities, and the same should apply to all cricketing nations, all cricketers, and all cricket fans.

Unequal rights and unequal division of resources is not simply unjust, it is also self defeating. Look at the models presented by other sporting codes around the world.

Major League Baseball is a success, not least because of the sharing of resources. The New York Yankees earn much more income than the St Louis Cardinals, but much of that income is pooled and shared. As a result MLB presents a highly competitive code. And because it is competitive it is also highly popular. And because it is highly popular, it is highly profitable.

Compare that to football leagues such as those in Scotland and Spain, which are dominated by a couple of "haves" - and where the remainder of the sides are "have nots" that are regularly bankrupted or fail. Real Madrid vs Barcelona, or (formerly) Celtic vs Rangers are popular - and those teams make enough money to continue to dominate - but teams like Ross County (average gate this season, 3700) and Getafe (5000) will continue to fail - and because of the financial dominance of the larger clubs will never be able to compete with them. In each of those leagues the "have nots" have ceded some of their rights to the "haves" in such a way that the league has become increasingly noncompetitive. While a small number of individual teams in those leagues can be deemed successful, the leagues themselves can only be dubbed failures.

The answer to an "Augustus moment" is not to cede your rights, but instead to fight for effective democratic governance. You already have the Woolf report which provides a pathway for that to happen. I do not want to see New Zealand Cricket become a vassal state, and I do not wish to see cricket in this country enter into a spiral of inevitable decline.

I would be grateful if you could advise me of what action the Board will be taking to ensure that cricket fans like myself have a future to look forward to.
Click to expand...
 
HeathDavisSpeed

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Binkley and I make a great pair.

Me rummaging around Iain O'Brien's dustbins and him in his backyard.

I think the erstwhile Mr. O'Brien needs better security.
 
Binkley

Binkley

U19 Captain
HeathDavisSpeed said:
Yeah, Petone's my neck of the woods too. Did you get a good view of the big fire at the derelict School yesterday? Gotta love those arsonists.
Click to expand...
No. But I got a hell of a fright walking past there a couple of weeks' ago. The armed offenders squad was having a practice which involved blowing open doors with explosives and charging around corners with full combat gear on. Not really the sort of thing you expect when out for a weekend stroll.

I heard some residents in the access street are really angry at a proposal to convert the school into a massive retirement village. I reckon the ICC shenanigans have turned me into a conspiracy nut, because my first thought was to blame one of them. But the Police probably just left one of their bombs behind.
 
HeathDavisSpeed

HeathDavisSpeed

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Binkley said:
I heard some residents in the access street are really angry at a proposal to convert the school into a massive retirement village. I reckon the ICC shenanigans have turned me into a conspiracy nut, because my first thought was to blame one of them. But the Police probably just left one of their bombs behind.
Click to expand...
Actually, the arson is a really good advertisement for the retirement village company. "Don't want arson on your doorstep? The please consent to our new shiny retirement village replete with 5 storey block in the middle of a residential area."

Personally, I'm all for the retirement village - just as long as they keep the build height to only 2 storeys. Better than a derelict site which is torched with regularity.

That armed offenders squad training was pretty noisy. Fortunately all nearby residents got a letter from the police informing us of it otherwise I would have assumed some pitched battle was going down at the old school.
 
silentstriker

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
So CSA and Pakistan in opposition. NZC seem to be going along with it. I wonder what the other subcontinent boards will do? Bangladesh should finally stand up to India - while it's true that it was the BCCI who got them Test status (mainly for the vote), they've never even toured India. Zimbabwe will do anything the trimvurate says. So right now, with NZC and Zimbabwe, this new proposal has five votes already.....not good for our side (e.g those in opposition)....
 
Bahnz

Bahnz

Hall of Fame Member
silentstriker said:
So CSA and Pakistan in opposition. NZC seem to be going along with it. I wonder what the other subcontinent boards will do? Bangladesh should finally stand up to India - while it's true that it was the BCCI who got them Test status (mainly for the vote), they've never even toured India. Zimbabwe will do anything the trimvurate says. So right now, with NZC and Zimbabwe, this new proposal has five votes already.....not good for our side (e.g those in opposition)....
Click to expand...
Yeah, the proposal would also dump Bangladesh down to the 2nd tier of test cricket (presuming that proposal goes ahead), requiring them to start playing some games against Afghanistan and Ireland, which I'm not sure if they'd be too keen on. Still, I tend to think that they'll fall into line with the triumvirate, especially if the BCCI agrees to a tour in the near future. Haven't heard anything from the WICB yet...their vote is shaping up to be fairly critical.
 
Last edited:
Bahnz

Bahnz

Hall of Fame Member
Nazmul Hassan has been quoted as saying: "We can't do anything on our own. I can protest but if the other nine countries are on one side, there's not much I can do," Hassan said. "I have to find countries who are in our position, read through the proposals and then think what to do."

ICC's revamp plans : Boards silent on ICC revamp consequences | Cricket News | Cricinfo ICC Site | ESPN Cricinfo

So it doesn't sound like he's dead keen on the idea but at the same time it seems fairly likely that if things are tight Bangladesh won't try and rock the boat.
 
hendrix

hendrix

Hall of Fame Member
There's nothing they can do anyway. Watch what happens when it's voted against. They'll just go ahead and do it anyway.
 
Hurricane

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
SA will be offered various sweetners to come around. The best would be if the CEO of Cricket SA gets taken out for boozy lunches next week to bring him around - and they invite some young female intern along for the lunch as eye candy.

As for NZ they probably have some compromising photos of McHesson and are holding us to ransom.
 
G

Garson007

State Vice-Captain
The whole CSA reshuffle happened at completely the wrong time for the BCCI. If it was still Majola with the lack of an independent board, South Africa would have been part of the big 4 imho.

I'd go so far as to say that this bill is the reason that the BCCI had a fallout with CSA appointing Lorgat. A hint is that CSA is not included in the "fund", which might be an oversight after removing CSA from the header of the bill - and not purposeful.
 
Last edited:
silentstriker

silentstriker

The Wheel is Forever
Bahnz said:
Yeah, the proposal would also dump Bangladesh down to the 2nd tier of test cricket (presuming that proposal goes ahead), requiring them to start playing some games against Afghanistan and Ireland, which I'm not sure if they'd be too keen on. Still, I tend to think that they'll fall into line with the triumvirate, especially if the BCCI agrees to a tour in the near future. Haven't heard anything from the WICB yet...their vote is shaping up to be fairly critical.
Click to expand...
I think constitutional changes like this require 7 votes, so CSA and Pakistan just need two countries to join them. SL, Bangladesh, WI need to step up. Zimbabwe won't.
 
WindieWeathers

WindieWeathers

International Regular
Firstly let me say i find it quite funny how people/ICC love to shunt WI into "minnow" and "second tier" status when the truth of the matter is over the whole duration of the game our success stands high and above most of the other cricketening nations..especilly two of the "big three" who are looking to create this mess. The records are there in black and white...15 years undefeated, 29 test series without defeat, highest run chase in test match history...have won every single ICC trophy ever made...current world t20 champions and have arguebly had the greatest test side that ever play the game etc etc...and yet you'd think we were Bermuda the way some folks talk about WI!!.

How are teams meant to grow and reach glory in this game if the same three are eating off the top table and everyone else has scraps? And you know it's ironic because if test cricket were to die we'd probably be in a good position because you can rest assured our t20/one day talent are coming through by the bucket load!!..especially now we've got the CPL up and running which looks like it could be huge for our cricket moving forward..but in all honesty we still love test cricket in the caribbean..last year against Zimbabwe in a test series we had over 15 thousand turn up for one of the games in dominica!!..yes some fans aren't happy with whats going on in our cricket...but we can see shoots of talent coming up and people can see that we may have a decent unit in a few years...

When India got smashed 4-0 twice in a row to england and aus..i didn't see any calls for them to be "second tier"...when Australia got smashed by india, beat at home by SA and soundly beaten in England recently i didn't see any calls for them to be "demoted"...and now England are getting their backsides spanked and are there any calls? nope!! 8-)

Anyway it's looking like our vote might be crucial the way it's going..i can tell you now us WI fans expect our new president to do RIGHT by caribbean cricket..which would be to reject such an idea...but knowing our board if the "big three" make them a crazy offer then lord knows what will happen... one wicb director has already spoken out against it HERE ...and talks are taking place between the wicb board members about it so we shall see what transpires.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Top