CHENNAI: Ensuring all international matches have context with a more centralised management of schedule, better revenue share among nations and with the players while having a regulation for a global calendar and player movement are among the recommendations made by the World Cricketers Association's Global Game Structure Report for 2025.
The report, released on Wednesday, is based on interviews with 64 key stakeholders of the sport, including current players, administrators, commercial and media partners, and player associations. It proposes a number of recommendations to address the identified issues in scheduling, economy, regulation and leadership of the sport.
There are some noteworthy changes that has been proposed for the 2028-2031 cycle including a change in revenue share model that will bring down the BCCI's share in ICC from $231 million to $62 million, establishing a Global Game Leadership Committee, an interim step to make recommendations to the ICC, have distinct divisions across formats in international cricket with a promotion and relegation provision. Currently, 50 per cent of all ICC revenue is distributed between the big three of BCCI, England Cricket Board (ECB) and Cricket Australia.
Perhaps, the most radical proposal from the WCA is to change the ICC structure, which is made of member nations, with an independent committee that would be made of 25 per cent national boards, 25% T20 leagues/franchises, 25% players, and 25% independents on an interim basis. "For as long as the national governing bodies continue to refuse to empower the ICC to act as a genuine global governing body, and continue to act in their own self interest, the structure of our great sport will never be optimised, " said Heath Mills, WCA Chair.
According to the report, there is a 10 per cent downfall in Tests from 2017-19 to 2021-23, 13 per cent drop in ODIs and a massive 87 per cent jump in the T20Is for the men. As for women, there is a 16 per cent bump in ODIs and a 20 per cent rise in T20Is. This is not inclusive of the domestic T20 leagues that have come up for both men and women. As a result, more and more players have started to opt out of central contracts to avoid missing out on franchise leagues. The report says that 60 per cent of the players have indicated so and many have even called for a fix to avoid this. Hayley Matthews, the current West Indies captain, one of the first names in most T20 leagues, was quoted as saying, "women's leagues are starting to clash more with international cricket and players are now starting to need to choose. The women's schedule needs to avoid the big issues we see in the men's game."
Meanwhile, according to the report, 70 per cent of the global revenue is generated in three months across IPL and major ICC events "where almost $1 billion is made each month" and the remaining nine months approximately account for $140 million per month with international games and T20 leagues overlap. They also generate 87 per cent of revenue from all bilateral internationals. Meanwhile, just two per cent of global revenue is distributed to countries ranked from 13-108. The report proposes parameters and a recalibrated distribution model to fasttrack global growth. "It would also reduce the significant burden on India to service the game by touring. Parameters to be implemented could include, for example and in line with international precedents, a minimum 2% and maximum 10% for the top 24 countries, and a minimum 10% distribution collectively for countries 25+," it read.
With the total player payments in world cricket represent approximately 10 per cent of the revenue, the report also proposes that a minimum percentage of revenue generated should be shared with players in all sanctioned cricket (across international cricket, T20 leagues, ICC events) to ensure players are fairly compensated, incentivised to stay in centralised competition structures for longer, and protected from exploitation.
