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England and Australia have been castigated for a “refusal to hold India to account” after allowing the cricket-mad nation to tighten its vice-like grip on the game.
India now boasts the chair of the International Cricket Council, Jay Shah, to go along with the largest share of revenues from the game and the world’s leading T20 league, the IPL.
Writing in the 2025 edition of the influential Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, editor Lawrence Booth calls the lack of opposition to India “a sorry truth”.
“2024 was the year cricket gave up any claim to being properly administered, with checks, balances, and governance for the many, not the few. Cricket has handed over the only key not already in India’s possession.
“England and Australia, the only other countries with a hint of clout, acquiesced with barely a squeak. Shah’s coronation – uncontested, naturally – was in no small part a consequence of their refusal to hold India to account.”
Shah, a former secretary of Indian cricket’s governing body the BCCI and the son of the country’s minister of home affairs, was elected chair of the ICC in December, succeeding New Zealander Greg Barclay.
His ascent further underlines India’s influence on the game, which sees it allocated 38.5 per cent of ICC revenues. England, Australia and Pakistan, the next biggest beneficiaries, receive around six per cent each.
At this year’s Champions Trophy in Pakistan, India were given special dispensation to play their games in the UAE – including the final – due to tensions with the hosts. They won the tournament.
The IPL, meanwhile, has become a commercial juggernaut, with the second most lucrative media rights deal on a per-game basis in sport, after the Premier League, and franchises valued at upwards of $1bn.
The latest Wisden Almanack names England trio Gus Atkinson, Jamie Smith and Sophie Ecclestone among its five cricketers of the year, along with Liam Dawson and Dan Worrall.
Indian duo Jasprit Bumrah and Smriti Mandhana are crowned the leading men’s and women’s cricketers in the world, respectively, while West Indies batter Nicolas Pooran is named the leading player in T20.
