The Big Three lose the permanent Membership-essentiallysports.com

The very famous cash rich cricket bodies famously renowned as the “BIG THREE” visually, BCCI, CA and the ECB were bestowed with the super veto powers in 2014 allowing them to be an integral part of the governing parts of the ICC as well as a permanent membership. With the opulent financial status of these cricket boards, they took over the various coveted positions in the ICC executive council.

These powerful bodies not only gain the benefits of revenue share but also avoid relegation that was supposed to be proposed in order to provide associate teams like Afghanistan and Ireland a chance over the struggling nations like Zimbabwe or the West Indies. However, the dominance of the Big Three does not allow only these major bodies to avail the financial benefits but also tends to propose a Test Cricket Fund available to the full members except the Big Three. The dominance of these bodies became evident when they lashed out the World Test Championship scheduled in 2017 and replaced it with the 50 over 8 nation Champions Trophy. However ICC on Feb 4, 2017 took a u-turn on the Big Three ideology, thereby sacking the permanent membership for the three dominant cricket bodies.

If the sources are believed to be true, this reverse move by the ICC can be a cause of the public demonstrations at The Oval and the film “Death of a Gentleman” opposing the Big Three ideology. Moreover, the recent issues in the BCCI also propelled the move to eradicate the dominance of big three. This move is expected to restore the purity and the spirit of the game. A few of the conclusions evident after the sacking of the big three includes-

• The use of DRS (Decision Review System).
• The anti-corruption unit will have the power to extract information from the cell phones.
• Introduction of Test Championship every 2 years.
• The top nine test playing nations will have to engage themselves in a rolling 2 year league and also against the 3 lower ranked teams.
• These 3 nations will include Zimbabwe along with Ireland and Afghanistan if they meet the “membership criteria”.

The further advancement and the final conclusions will be drawn after a meeting scheduled in April this year. Thus it will be an end to the ownership over the permanent membership for the top 3 nations and will bring the nations to a common base.