Cricket South Africa has surprised everyone by coming out loudly against the ICC restructuring proposals put forward by India, Australia and England (henceforth referred to as The ExCo Members). CSA has habitually been an incompetent, divisive and bumbling organisation. But this time around the feeling must be that they're getting shafted regardless so they might as well go down with the ship, lashed to the wheel and firing all the cannons. Of course, cricket politics leaves ample room for a craven reversal of this position. But at least for now someone has spoken up.
The politics behind India's recently truncated tour to SA have become clear. This proposal needs seven votes of the ten ICC Full Members to pass at the Jan 28/29 board meeting. Let's tally up the votes.
Sri Lanka has always been India's satellite. Pakistan and Bangladesh might have little love for the Indians but are likely to vote with them anyway as part of the Asian bloc. That leaves the three ExCo members with six votes; five if Pakistan go rogue. Zimbabwe will vote with South Africa.
So the ExCo needs one or both of New Zealand and the West Indies to vote with them. Not so coincidentally, these two countries were the ones filling up the gaps in India's schedule created by cancelling matches against South Africa.
The lads at CSA expressed some baffled confusion at the BCCI's politicking around the tour. At the time I thought it was our own incompetent administrators trying to play hardball with a team way out of their league. Now the full and brutal truth has come to light.
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