PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan to raise voice against Big Three in ICC meetings

The PCB Chairman Shaharyar Khan will try his best to dismantle the influence of the Big Three System in the International Cricket Council (ICC) meetings to be held in Dubai from 25 April.

The second round of ICC meetings are slated to begin from this Monday. The schedule of the meetings include topics related to the ICC Women’s Committee (Thursday), ICC Chief Executives’ Committee (Friday and Saturday), Audit, Finance & Commercial Affairs and Development Committee (Saturday), Governance and Executive Committee (Sunday) and ICC, IDI and IBC Board meetings (Monday).

The PCB that had earlier raised its voice against the influence of the Big Three has now, while talking to APP, expressed a willingness to put an end of dominance by the BCCI, CA and ECB.

“Currently the main agenda on PCB Chairman’s mind to discuss in the meeting is to end the Big Three formula and finalize a new system,” the official said adding the Chairman wants equal opportunities for all countries.

The ICC had made the cricket boards of India, Australia and England more powerful in 2013 giving them more shares in the revenue than the others. This drew sharp criticism from the other independent stakeholders and the current ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar then went on to express an interest in changing the system.

The meetings are also expected to focus on other extremely important issues like structuring and scheduling of bi-lateral international cricket, update on the review of February-April 2014 Resolutions and ICC Constitution, updates on matters relating to USACA, participation in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, anti-corruption and anti-doping.

The PCB Chairman had said in October last year that Pakistan had signed the Big Three deal with the ICC in expectation of revenue from the India-Pakistan bilateral series.

“We signed the new constitution on the understanding that India would play us six times in eight years. This was the inducement to us to drop our opposition and for the ICC to have a unanimous agreement,” Khan had told Telegraph Sport.

“Now we are now facing the problem if India does not play. It not only goes against MoU they signed but also the understanding on which we signed the new constitution.”

“I know apart from Pakistan there are other countries not happy with this unequal treatment within the ICC board. It is unequal and undemocratic. But we signed it so we had to accept it.

“But within a year if treatment is not the same for each country then I think Pakistan will have to consider what to do about it. What can we do? There are other countries that feel like this. Anything is possible. I think the deal can be undone if the big three themselves feel this is not getting the work done.”

The cancelled bilateral series between India and Pakistan is understood to have left the PCB disappointed as they had agreed to the Big Three contract hoping for more matches between the two neighbouring countries. Former ICC chairman Ehsan Mani had also recently protested against the Big Three structure increasing pressure on the ICC.