Sometimes information comes into the public domain by accident, perhaps by a careless slip of the tongue or by an overheard conversation. At other times it is as a result of a deliberate leak which is the method most favoured by politicians. They generally do it to attempt to make them appear as if they are achieving something worthwhile but it is often just self -serving bluster.

However even politicians are rarely brazen enough to openly admit that they have achieved their goal by means of a threat that would, if implemented, seriously damage the environment in which they operate. Sanjay Patel, Secretary of the BCCI, clearly has no compunction about being brazen when in an astonishing exercise in egotistical arrogance he declared that the BCCI would have set up a parallel world cricket body if the other Full Members did not agree to their demands.

Patel speaking at the Sports Journalists Federation of India’s annual convention in Hyderabad last week trumpeted “We got criticised by many in the media and lot of them did not agree but we told them that if India is not getting its proper due and importance then India might be forced to form a second ICC of its own.

England and Australia agreed and after that it was decided and from June 27th onwards the new structure will come into place. I would like to state that all 10 Full Members have signed the resolution." He went on “By the month end, India will take a leading role in the ICC. Mr Srinivasan is going (to become ICC Chairman). There is no Supreme Court bar on him. Both of us are going to Melbourne.

In the last four months we have settled (the issue) with all the Full Members of the ICC and convinced them about the new structure and the new financial model of the ICC which would be followed in the coming years.

"India would play a leading role in the ICC and the reasons are well known. India is more or less responsible for 68 to 72 percent of the ICC's gross revenue but unfortunately so far we were getting three to four percent of it."
So now we have the definitive version of events and it is as some of us expected. No mention of the global development of cricket or of meritocracy.

To paraphrase Bill Clinton- it’s about money and power, stupid. The puppets that are the ECB and Cricket Australia caved in and were rewarded with a larger pile of crumbs from the table than the other seven Full Members. Patel hasn’t even bothered to keep up the pretence that this was done for the good of the game and who knows where it all might lead.

It is interesting and informative to read the views of a former ICC President Pakistan’s Eshan Mani who, commenting on Patel’s boast said "I am talking from personal experience, when I was ICC president, when a country threatened not to take part in ICC events," Mani said, while refusing to divulge the name of the board in question.

"And all I did was to speak to other Full Members, and that included countries like England Australia, Pakistan and West Indies at that time, and they made it clear to this country that was making threats that they would only work within the ICC and would not break ranks with the ICC. And once this country got that message, it realised its threat was absolutely hollow."

Mani said had he been the current ICC president, he would have asked the BCCI to explain its position "in writing." The second step would have been to ensure that "the other members stood firm" to send a message to the BCCI. He said that India would have "realised once it calmed down that this was a very hollow threat and their whole bluff could be called and they would be embarrassed if it ever got out publicly." Mani said the ICC leadership as well as the cricket boards of England and Australia had "panicked" in their response to the BCCI threat, instead of calling their bluff.

"They [the ECB and CA] should have just stopped and thought about what is in the best interest of the game, instead of panicking which they clearly did - and started trying to compromise the organisation. What they have done is terrible for the governance of world cricket by their very actions… This should not have been rushed through, this should have been done pragmatically, looking at the pros and cons. In the very least, the BCCI would have been asked to put its proposals in writing and say fine, we'll look at it, we'll have it analysed, and come back to you. But to actually then delegate England and Australia to talk to the BCCI, they started looking after their own interests."

There are of course no prizes for guessing which country he was talking about and perhaps during his term of office (2003-2006) there were more strong willed /fewer spineless characters on the ICC Board. His term of office ended the year before the advent of the IPL which has become a cash cow (or sacred cow if you will) for the BCCI and also for many of the world’s top players.

He argues that the IPL would be nothing without the best players and if all of the others countries had stood together those players would have not been available.

However I remember a similar argument being made at the time Kerry Packer set up World Series Cricket and in the end the lure of much greater rewards for the best players proved irresistible and who could blame them.
To be parochial about it my concern is for the long term future of Irish cricket. Yes I know that the new structures provide avenues into Test cricket and all sorts of verbal guarantees (and we all know what Sam Goldwyn said about the value of those) but who is going to enforce them.

Who can be certain that India, emboldened by the submissiveness of the other nine malleable members, will not at some point in the future demand an even larger slice of the cake and decide that Associate cricket has no financial value to them and consequently severely cut funding or indeed remove it altogether.

Who would be prepared to say no to the BCCI (there is no point in saying ICC as they are merely a convenient non-de-plume)? Can you really imagine Giles Clarke telling Srinivasan that this would be a bridge too far especially as it would mean that a whole new generation of talented Irish players would have no choice but to don the Three Lions if they wanted to play at the highest level.

The grim reality is that however well Ireland or indeed any of the Associates perform on the field they will always be at the mercy of the BCCI until such time as the supporters of cricket in India recognise that they have a responsibility to ensure that their governing body has a duty of care for the worldwide future of the game. There is no doubt that the Indian nation love cricket with a passion and are justifiably very proud of their national team and many revel in the knowledge that they are now the powerhouse in the game.

Thankfully there are commentators such as Nagraj Gollapudi and Sharda Ugra who recognise that empire building is the threat to the future of cricket and that there is a legitimate alternative view to that offered by the sycophantic “experts” employed by the BCCI. These two and others like them deserve the full support of all cricket lovers and judging by forum comments they are making an impression on supporters. While it may yet be a minority hopefully it will gather momentum to the point that real change will come.

It is only seven years ago that Ireland allegedly had one of the best economies in the world sustained by a property boom that some thought would never end and even if it did the experts said that there would be a soft landing. We now know that rather than a soft landing the economy crashed and burned. There is no guarantee that something similar could not happen in India and if it should, given the financial control exercised by the BCCI, it could well bring world cricket crashing down with it.

Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. While I am not suggesting that the instigators of the plans to control world cricket are in themselves intrinsically evil the full implementation of their plans could result in the evil destruction of the game as we know it.

It is up to the many good men and women who love the sport to make their voices heard and in particular encourage those who are speaking out in the sub-continent against the dangers of the path chosen by those who purport to best represent cricket.

*********************************************
Writing of Edmund Burke allows me to segue into another item on our own Edmund for which I make no apology. Last week Ed Joyce compiled his fifth first class century of the summer and now has a batting average for the season of 96.25 which is more than 20 runs ahead of the next best player. He is just 44 runs short of 1000 runs in all formats with a full three months of cricket still to come.

Should he accumulate another 787 runs this year he will reach a landmark 25,000 runs across all three formats at senior level and if 312 of those are in first-class innings will bring that aggregate to 15,000. His next three figure score, and given his current remarkable form that should not be far away, will mean that the classy left hander will have a half century of hundreds.

It is no wonder that England selector Gus Fraser last week somewhat wistfully stated that if Ed had been available for selection he would have been under serious consideration to play in the current Test against Sri Lanka. Well Gus seven years ago England had the opportunity to cap him at the highest level of the game but thankfully for Ireland they passed on that and now he is back in green for the rest of his career.

As he told me last month he hopes that that career can last until he gets the opportunity to play Test cricket for Ireland provided that his body holds up. Age is no barrier to class and talent. Maybe it is a left handed attribute as prolific Aussie batsman Chris Rogers notched up 180 for Middlesex at the weekend and he is a year older than Ed while Shiv Chanderpaul is now at 2nd in the Test rankings and he will be forty in August.

At least one Test cap would be a very fitting tribute to Ireland’s best ever batsman.