Jay Shah elected unopposed as Independent Chair of ICC
The Indian cricket administrator is known to have found an overwhelming majority backing his candidature
Mumbai: Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Jay Shah was declared ‘elected unopposed’ as the next Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Shah will take the game’s top job from December 1.
Shah was the only one to be nominated to succeed Greg Barclay; and that too by a huge majority, comfortably more than the two of the sixteen current ICC directors as required by the rules.
“I am humbled by the nomination as the Chair of the International Cricket Council. I am committed to working closely with the ICC team and our member nations to further globalize cricket,” Shah said in a statement.
Shah’s formal foray in cricket administration began working at the district level in Gujarat, before being appointed Jt secretary of the Gujarat Cricket Association in 2013. He played a key role in redevelopment of the Motera stadium to the mammoth 1,32,000-seater Narendra Modi stadium.
Shah, 35, will be the youngest ever Chair and the fifth Indian to head the ICC. Previously, Jagmohan Dalmiya and Sharad Pawar had been ICC Presidents, and later, N Srinivasan and Shashank Manohar were in charge when the post was relabeled as Chairman.
Shah’s elevation is representative of India’s clout in the ICC. Even during Srinivasan’s tenure, ten years back, when BCCI began to demand a bigger share from the revenue pie based on Indian cricket’s burgeoning market-value, it was with an assist from England and Australia. Today, the Indian board is calling the big shots in the ICC boardroom by itself. If that’s the best-case scenario for the game depends on one’s world view, but BCCI under Shah has done very well for itself.
Shah has been at the helm of affairs at BCCI as the secretary since October 2019. When Shah began his first term, board president Sourav Ganguly would represent India at the ICC board. “At that time, no one realistically thought BCCI would ever be able to regain lost ground from the rollback of the proposed big three financial model - it guaranteed India above 30 % of ICC revenue. A lot of credit goes to Jay for changing opinion within the ICC,” a former BCCI official said.
With Shah as head of ICC’s finance committee (F&CA), BCCI got its biggest-ever share (38.5 %) from ICC revenue.
After getting a grip on things, Shah has been at the front and center of decision-making in Indian cricket, with Ganguly and now Roger Binny as presidents taking a back seat.
The BCCI coffers have kept on filling; Covid or soft market conditions notwithstanding. Indian Premier League (IPL) expansion from eight to ten teams and the bumper media-rights revision by three times for 2023-27, all happened under Shah’s watch. Getting the Women’s Premier League (WPL) up and running with impressive gains for both the board and the players has also been transformative.
Shah will end his BCCI innings and vacate the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Chair in the coming days. But, by the time he completes his three-year term at the ICC, he would be re-eligible to again become an office bearer in the BCCI.
How he tackles the challenge of safeguarding the interests of the 108-member ICC will be closely watched by the wider cricket world. “We stand at a critical juncture where it is increasingly important to balance the coexistence of multiple formats, promote the adoption of advanced technologies, and introduce our marquee events to new global markets. Our goal is to make cricket more inclusive and popular than ever before,” said Shah.
In financial terms, revenue from the Indian broadcaster constitutes more than 85 % of ICC’s media-rights earnings. Shah’s immediate challenge would be to address ICC broadcast partner from the Indian market, Disney Star’s demand. They are seeking a discount on their $3 billion media-rights payout for 2023-27.
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