ICC’s all-powerful Executive Board will decide on the way forward.
Shashank Manohar refused to guess the inevitable fallout of the Indian Board’s non-compliance with the International Cricket Council’s Anti-Doping Code. “I don’t know what the ICC will do. The implications of this decision would be decided after we write to the ICC. Today, it would be jumping the gun,” the Board of Control for Cricket in India president said. It is unlikely that he and his BCCI colleagues have not made the calculations on the likely implications.
One logical step could be an emergency meeting of the ICC’s all-powerful Executive Board which will decide on the way forward. But any resolution against BCCI will require the consent of seven members and it is unlikely that there will be so many voters for an anti-BCCI motion.
The BCCI can easily count on support from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe. That is four (including BCCI vote) out of 10. Besides, India can also bank on support from South Africa and Australia, the two co-members of the Champions League T20. There is no guarantee that England will vote against BCCI either. The only negative vote could be from Pakistan. A Board official reminded: “What’s ICC? It is an association of members. Only the members can take a decision.”
A top ICC official stated that a step forward on the issue will happen only after a formal meeting of its top officials —president David Morgan and Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat. Neither Morgan nor Lorgat can consider taking a decision that doesn’t involve ICC vice-president Sharad Pawar and its principal advisor IS Bindra.
On Sunday evening, the ICC said “The next step is to be considered by the ICC Board.” But he did not indicate when the Board meeting will be held. The next Board meeting is scheduled for mid-October. A BCCI official told DNA that one possible ICC decision could be to ban or suspend the 11 players (under the IRTP) but stated that any such move could result in a disaster for the ICC as the BCCI then may not take part in the forthcoming Champions Trophy.
The implications of a non-India Champions Trophy could be serious for the world body as it had sold its eight-year broadcast rights for over a billion dollars on the promise of an Indian participation. The broadcaster might well sue the ICC.
So where does the impasse head? It is a premature to guess but some thing can be read in the statement of a highly-ranked ICC official who told this paper: “There will not be a Third World War over this issue.”
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