Prince EWS
Global Moderator
It would be in-fighting though. The BCCI pulling out of the World Cup doesn't necessarily mean India would have to. I'm sure there are thousands of organisations who'd jump at the chance to be the internationally recognised controllers of Indian cricket and the ICC effectively have the power to decide who that is. That's where the in-fighting would begin.Nah, in fighting is different than the "us vs them / evil westerners" fight. Everyone will band together and make it happen if push comes to shove through any compromise.
The reason the BCCI won the ICL/IPL war and the reason we aren't seeing dozens more ICL-like competitions isn't the fact that they were better run or had a better business model; it's the fact that the ultimate trump card lies in that national side. If the other nine Test sides had decided to start playing international games against the ICL India XI instead of the BCCI India XI then it would have ended completely differently. The marketing power doesn't lie in the BCCI itself but the Indian national side; the "toothless tiger" that is the ICC actually holds all the aces without realising, in that it could theoretically pick whichever organisation caved in enough to its whims to represent India.
It's not going to happen though, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's becoming clear that CA and the ECB are just as self-interested as the BCCI; they're more interested in forming a triumvirate with the BCCI as it furthers their own interests best. Secondly, all the boards are far too spineless in general to try such a thing anyway.