Greg Barclay who has been elected as the new ICC Chairman talked about bilateral as well as ICC events in detail. He said that both these events can peacefully exist helping the game ecosystem.He also stressed on the Big Three where three cricket playing nations which includes India, Australia and England were supposed to earn the lion’s share of global body’s revenue to which Barclay clarified
that there is no such concept like Big three. He also clarified that in media there was perception build around him that he give more preference to Bilateral series over anything else which is not correct at all.
Greg Barclay has been elected as the new Independent Chair of the International Cricket Council.
Barclay joins from New Zealand Cricket where he has been a director since 2012 and also served as a director of the 2015 ICC @cricketworldcup.
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— ICC (@ICC) November 24, 2020
“There has been a lot of misrepresentation in the media around that (that I am in favour of bilateral cricket over world events. But the fact is, of course I am an advocate of bilateral cricket, it is the lifeblood of cricket in all countries,” Barclay said in a video posted on the ICC website.
“…Countries playing each other on a regular basis, sustained competitive relevant competition is what drives fan engagement. It is what drives the development pathways, it is a vital part of cricket. But that doesn’t mean that the world events are not as important,” said the administrator from New Zealand who has also has BCCI’s backing.
“The ICC runs world class events. If you look at what happened with the women’s T20 all the way through the final, the ODI World Cup last year, they were amazing events,” Barclay said.
“They are pinnacle events no doubt about that. I would need to say they (bilateral and global events) need to work in conjunction with each other, one can’t sit in isolation to the other. I am very conscious of the delicate ecosystem that crickets sits on.”
He also talked about different leagues like IPL and Big Bash where all top International stars take part along with playing for their nation it’s never easy for the player to give 100 percent in each and every match and we shouldn’t expect great players to perform in every crunch situations based on the amount of cricket these players are playing in last few years.
Taking about Barclay he became the chairman after comfortably defating Imran Khwaja who was acting Chairman in place of Shashank Manohar. The voting was carried out during ICC’s annual quarterly meeting on Tuesday. The electronic voting process was conducted to elect new chairman where 16 Board of directors-12 from full member Test playing nations,three associate countries and one independent female director (Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo). It will be interesting to see the steps that he will take as President in coming years to globalize the sport of cricket in maximum parts of the world.
