Jay Shah Helms Cricket’s Future

THE ELECTION OF Jay Shah, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), to the post of International Cricket Council (ICC) chief, was not unexpected. Ever since murmurs of his name began doing the rounds, once the incumbent Chairman Greg Barclay announced he would not be seeking a third term, it was widely assumed that were Shah to throw his hat in the ring, he was going to get the job. It is perhaps indicative of just how central India has become to cricket globally, that Shah was eventually elected unopposed. Even Pakistan Cricket Board, which has in the past got into spats with BCCI, did not put up a candidate against him. According to reports, 15 out of the 16 directors in the nomination stage backed his candidature.

It is evident why this would be the case. The engines of global cricket are greased by the Indian market, more so today than ever before, and BCCI is the world’s strongest cricket board. You can gauge how reliant world cricket is on BCCI from the fact that ICC today draws about 70 per cent of its revenue from it. Another reason why the scales tilted towards Shah appears to have been his success at organising big marquee events and securing eye-popping broadcast deals for BCCI. It was reflected in a quote that Johnny Grave, Cricket West Indies’ CEO, gave to a newspaper: “The ICC board doesn’t want to waste too much time on inter­nal politics. If you look at Jay’s leadership at the BCCI, it has been wonderful. He has hosted the Women’s Premier League, successfully oversaw the 50-over World Cup in India and has signed huge broadcast deals with IPL and for BCCI.”

When Shah steps into the ICC office, he will be the fifth In­dian—after Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar, N Srinivasan, Sha­shank Manohar—and at 35, the youngest to take up the position of ICC chief. It will mark a rapid ascent to the top of cricket administration. From 2009, when he joined the Gujarat Cricket Association as an executive board member, to his election as BCCI’s all-powerful secretary in 2019, while also serving other important posts like that of president of the Asian Cricket Council and the chairman of ICC’s Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee, Shah has been at the fore­front of major cricket developments in the country in recent years. This has included overseeing the ambitious revamp of Ahmedabad’s Motera Stadium, touted to be the biggest in the world; the growth of IPL into one of sport’s most valuable commodities, including securing the record-breaking deal of `48,390 crore in 2022 for IPL media rights for a five-year period; the launching of the Women’s Premier League; and overseeing India’s T20 World Cup triumph earlier this year.

He will however be stepping into the post at an interesting moment for the game. On the one hand, cricket today finds itself optimistic and the reasons are clear. Having just hosted a T20 World Cup in the US, a market it has tried to enter for decades; and another big event—cricket’s debut at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028—approaching, many hope the game will expand and become a truly global sport. Shah has been elected for a term of three years, but it comes with the option of continuing for three more years. With a likelihood of six years as ICC chairman in front of him, Shah will be in a position to oversee and shape this growth and expansion and make the sport much bigger than what it is now. He alluded to this opportu­nity in the press statement his office released. “I am committed to working closely with the ICC team and our member nations to further globalise cricket. With cricket poised to make its historic debut at the Olympics in 2028, we stand at the precipice of a transformative era. This juncture is not merely a milestone, it’s a clarion call for all of us involved in this magnificent sport. It is my privilege to lead the ICC during such an exciting period in our shared journey,” he said.

The game today also however faces challenges. The same T20 format that has offered such riches is also changing the nature of the game. T20 leagues are mushrooming all over the world and taking up much of the calendar, and both players and various boards are increasingly swaying away from bi­lateral cricket and the traditional forms of Tests and One-Day Internationals. It is a peculiar situation with the boards push­ing their own leagues at the cost of international commit­ments and then finding themselves having to worry about the international game when they meet as ICC representatives. It is perhaps here that Shah’s experience as the all-powerful secretary of a board that, at least for the moment, appears to have found the right balance between its league and international commitments, will come in particularly handy. On the evidence of his stint as BCCI secretary, Shah has sought to ensure the primacy of international games over league cricket, overseeing tough decisions such as keeping cricketers like Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer out of the India squad when they appeared to be prioritising league commitments over international games. Steps like these are probably the reason why, in a few days from now, when the domestic tournament Duleep Trophy starts in India, for the first time in recent history, a vast number of India’s star cricketers will take to the field.

Dealing with these issues on a global level, where the pay for representing your country is increasingly pittance to what you can make at the leagues, is going to be a different ball game. The three boards of BCCI, Cricket Australia, and the England and Wales Cricket Board appear to be working towards a solution where they try to incentivise players and boards to play Test cricket. The three boards are believed to have come up with a plan for a dedicated fund for Test cricket that would cover the match fees, operating and visiting costs of teams other than the Big Three. Shah, media reports suggest, is expected to table this proposal when he assumes his role.

Whether this will help stall the further skewing of the cricket economy remains to be seen. Then there is also the matter of the Champions Trophy, supposed to be hosted in Pakistan next year, and queries over whether India will agree to visit the country or not.

In the past when an Indian administrator took over the top job at ICC, it was often followed with some concern over whether BCCI will further cement its authority on the game. This time that sentiment doesn’t seem to be there. By electing Shah, cricket’s movers and shakers perhaps hope he can chart the game away from the somewhat uncertain waters it finds itself in, towards firm ground.

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