Cricket Australia (CA) chairman Wally Edwards has said that the Indian cricket board deserved a bigger share of world cricket revenue for 'hiring of' Team India to the ICC and added the controversial governance reforms are 'critical for the future of the game'.
CA's board of directors on Friday backed the reforms championed by India, Australia and England and as at least four of the 10 Test-playing nations are almost broke and almost all members depend on India for survival, it therefore, allows the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to rule with an iron fist.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, central to the reforms is a new revenue distribution model that would see India receive the lion's share of ICC revenue and Edwards believes that they have made a fair negotiation as India is contributing towards 80 percent of the ICC revenue and are taking 20 percent for hiring their team for the ICC.
Stating that India's actions are worthy of compensation, Edwards also said that the current system for running the game, which is completely dysfunctional, would not solve any of its problems and insisted no country would be worse off under the changes if the next media rights deal met expectations.
Edwards further said that the reforms are absolutely critical for the future of the game, adding that CA has worked very hard to make sure that a lot of important things are protected, for which it is fair that India, Australia and England gets more of the shares from the revenue than the other members countries.
It has also emerged that Cricket Australia played the role of broker in trying to heal the rift between India and South Africa, which had devastating financial consequences for South Africa when India slashed its tour of that country last year, the report added.
