Aussies, England biggest culprits for ICC's 'Big 3': Ehsan Mani

A former President of the International Cricket Council ICC Pakistani Ehsan Mani is a vociferous proponent of good governance in the matters of running cricket at a global level In June 2003 he became the ICC president a position he held until 2006 With this solid background of management of the game at the highest level Mani was the first of many dissenting voices that spoke against the Big 3 proposals to overhaul the ICCs role in the running and development of cricketEhsan ManiThis is a position that he maintains to this day even after the initial furore over the changes to ICCs governance structure seems to be losing its momentum In an interview with PakPassionnet Mani spoke about the basis for his opposition to the influence of the Big 3 over the ICCs governance structure criticised Pakistan Cricket Board for its weak stance on the handling of the Big 3Excerpts from an interviewQ You have always been outspoken against the influence of the Big 3 on the ICC Has your stance changed given a change in Pakistans position under Najam Sethis leadershipA Absolutely not It really does not matter whether its Pakistan or any other country that accepts this situation the whole principle is wrong My position would have been the same even if Pakistan was part of the initiative in the first place or had been part of Big 4 Simply speaking what is being proposed is bad for cricket The whole governance structure of ICC has taken a huge step backwards What is being proposed by the Big 3 lacks total transparency and is being mooted by people who have personal vested interests or who have conflict of interests and are a beneficiary of their own proposals It is very disquieting as far as I am concernedQ If it was one country pushing for this change then one could suspect some foul play but here we have three members How would you counter thatA To me Australia and England ndash are the real culprits in this situation What they have done because of their own self interest and in order not to upset India is to impose standards of governance on the ICC which they themselves would not apply to their own organisations If you were to compare the governance standards that the ICC has in place today with what these boards have you would find a huge difference To me ECB and CA bear the most responsibility as to where cricket will find itself todayCricket Australia chairman Wally Edwards with ECB chief Giles ClarkeQ The fact is that the many of the smaller nations are going along with the Big 3 which could be a result of a carrot and stick approach How does that reflect on these nationsA This is why I refer to the governance structure The ICCs mandate is to act in the best interest of ALL cricket playing nations and to promote the game worldwide and to expand it Cricket will never flourish if eight or nine countries play the game at the highest level The ICC for years and certainly upto and during the time I was president had a priority to have a structural growth of cricket round the world The idea was to bring in nations like the United States of America and China where they could start playing the game seriously and in the long term they would produce huge amounts of money and resources for the ICC and its members As we know the American sports market is worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year Cricket gets excited over earning a few billions over 815 years or so which is really nothing The fact is that cricket today needs a vision or visionaries and not intellectual midgets who can run the gameQ Pakistans stance on the Big 3 has changed between the tenures of Zaka Ashraf and Najam Sethi Is this change of stance based on sound reasoning or political expediencyA I dont agree with Pakistans stance What the PCB is trying to do is to come to an accommodation and to take a pragmatic decision That doesnt make it right What the PCB is trying to do is make the best of a bad situation That is the bind it finds itself in today Unfortunately due to the structure and mismanagement of cricket in Pakistan we find ourselves in a situation that at a critical juncture when this was happening and proposals were being mooted earlier this year Pakistan had no leadership We had one Chairman who had been thrown out went to the court and came back The other one went out and is now back again This does not bode wellQ What future do you see for the ICC with the Big 3 in charge of its policiesA The ICC will be totally undermined as long as these three countries are involved with the three individuals who represent these countries in charge They are clearly not acting in the best interest of the members Certainly when I was in charge of the ICC Pakistan was just another member country for me My responsibility was to every country including the lesser known cricketing ones such as Singapore or Gibraltar These people Big 3 are there to make sure that they can extract as much in terms of resources for their own countries They have a conflict of interest here The sad thing is that in 2012 the ICC itself commissioned a governance review The representatives from Australia and England who are there today were themselves there when the Woolf Report was submitted regarding the governance of the ICC There were a number of recommendations made by the review and these people have not seen it fit to implement even one of those That tells us a bit about the agenda of these people and their motives which are clearly aimed at diluting the standing and authority of the governing bodyQ IPL in the UAE has been the subject of many discussions in the recent past How do you see this developmentA IPL has its own route Its a form of cricket which is really great for people who dont have the time to watch the longer form of the games Its great that this is happening in the UAE however the advent of IPL in the UAE shows the hypocrisy of the BCCI who for years said that they would not play in the UAE They came up with all sorts of reasons such as corruption for not playing Pakistan whilst blaming their government for not allowing their team to play in UAE All that has now been exposed as being based upon the money that the BCCI is now making from playing in the country as opposed to any sound moral stance2003The year in which Pakistani Ehsan Mani became president of ICC He held the post till 2006 the year in which Indias Sharad Pawar took overCourtesy PakPassionnet