Former England batsman Geoffrey Boycott feels cricket-playing countries should combine to outvote BCCI's opposition to the Decision Review System in the ICC even though most of them are “frightened to death of India's financial power”.
“If a majority of the ICC countries believe that the DRS is a good improvement for international cricket, they should vote for it and say, ‘Sorry India, you are in a minority.' It's supposed to be a democracy around the world, where the majority takes precedence,” Boycott told ‘ESPNcricinfo'
“But there is fear to offend, and some countries are totally afraid to offend India. The sooner they get around to it and say, ‘No. Since a majority of us believe it is good, we're going to do it,' the better. Simple as that. India won't like it, but you can't be run by one country,” he added.
India has vehemently opposed the DRS, saying it does not trust the technology to be foolproof, blocking its usage in the upcoming tour of England most recently.
Boycott said it is just the fear of BCCI's money might that is preventing other Boards from speaking up in favour of DRS.
“Many countries that play cricket are frightened to death of India's financial power. You've got to understand that before you get to voting on anything at the ICC,” he said.
“When you play international cricket, every country has its own television rights with its home broadcaster. When India come, you've got a number of TV stations queuing up in India to get the rights to beam the coverage in India and they pay a lot of money for that. Other countries don't have the same financial buying power”.
“So nobody wants to offend India. Nobody wants to create a situation where they say, ‘We're not going to tour.' I'm not saying India say that, and I'm not saying India are putting the pressure on and blackmailing; they don't. But, underneath, these countries are frightened to speak up,” Boycott explained.
Boycott said argument that resentment to BCCI's influence in the ICC stems from other countries' discomfort with shifting of the balance of power towards Asia, does not hold much ground.
“If you believe it was wrong earlier... and there are some people like my friend Sunil Gavaskar. He says that England and Australia ran the Imperial Cricket Conference, when it was called that, and he's right. They used to have two votes each, the other countries had one. That wasn't fair and it wasn't right. Now everybody has one vote,” he said.
“If it wasn't right back then, two wrongs don't make a right. It's about time the other countries stood up and said, ‘We're going to have the DRS because it's made more accurate decisions for cricket and it's all players ever want,'” he reasoned.
