BCCI secretary Jay Shah on Monday gave his verdict on PCB chairman Ramiz Raja’s proposal for an annual four-nation T20I series involving India and Pakistan, along with England and Australia. He called it a “short-term commercial initiative”.
Raja is set to present the proposal at the impeding ICC board meetings in March, with the argument that the bilateral series were financially draining.”My view is that a new structure based on pooling and sharing of income should be formed,” Ramiz had told ESPNcricinfo.
“The idea is to register a company that works under the ICC and has a dedicated Chief Executive Officer regulating the entire financial model, with the income divided among all the members. There are numerous rivalries like Ashes, Pakistan-India rivalry so it can’t go wrong when four T20 sides come and play each other. We need to whet the fans’ appetite as they are getting fatigued, and we need to create something outside the FTP.”
However, Shah seems more concerned with the expansion of the game to a more global level with the aim of seeing the sport at the Olympics.”With the IPL window expanding and the ICC (global) events every year in the cycle, our primary responsibility is to safeguard bilateral cricket at home, with emphasis on test cricket,” he told Reuters.
“I am also looking forward to seeing cricket at the Olympics, as that will help the game grow. Expansion of the sport is a challenge that our game faces and we must prioritise it over any short-term commercial initiative.”Having first proposed the idea on Twitter, Raja based his idea of a Super Series based on the Rugby union model where six top European nations play against each other annually.
