An India-Pakistan clash building up in the ICC boardroom

MUMBAI: An India versus Pakistan contest appears to be building up at the International Cricket Council as the governing body takes one step forward and two steps back to put an election process in place.
A section of the ICC's members, aided by participants in their ecosystem and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), insist that the ICC's new chairperson should be elected on basis of a 2/3rd majority while most member boards - including India, England and Australia - believe election should take place through a simple majority.
The ICC's board meeting to come to a decision in this regard took place via a teleconference on Monday. However, once again, there was no outcome. "There are 17 votes in the ICC. A 2/3rd majority to elect the new chair will mean any potential contender will require 12 votes whereas in a simple majority, anybody who gets nine votes will win," say sources. The governing body stands divided with 11 members, including India, England, Australia, South Africa and seven others on one side and interim chairman Imran Khwaja, independent director Indra Nooyi, three associated members and PCB on the other.
"Essentially, this is an India vs Pakistan game playing out there in the ICC. Now, it's for the BCCI to take a call on what they should be doing," say those in the know.
The ICC has no clear definition on how the election process should work. "In such a scenario, the board will have to pass a resolution and that can happen by way of a simple majority. That's part of ICC's constitution. So, they can certainly resolve it if they want to," add sources.
EOI on title rights out
The BCCI has come out with an invitation for Expression of Interest (EOI) for title sponsorship of the Indian Premier League's (IPL) 13th edition. The rights will be available to the winning bidder from August 18 onwards to December 31.
Interested third parties (excluding marketing agencies / agents) should submit an EOI in the manner prescribed below, the board said on Monday, clarifying that marketing agencies / agents are not eligible to bid.
BCCI has also underlined that "the turnover of the interested third party must be over Rs 300 crore as per the last audited accounts".
Meanwhile, another e-learning start-up 'Unacademy' is learnt to be interested in coming aboard the IPL bandwagon as an official partner. Unacademy were learnt to be in talks with BCCI before Covid put paid to all plans and will now be eligible only if their direct rivals, Byju's, don't come up with a winning bid for the title rights.
TOI understands that e-commerce giant Amazon, e-learning start-up Byju's and fantasy sports platform Dream 11 are interested in picking the rights. "At what value, that's the question," a leading industry executive, in the know of what a potential bidder is expecting from this space, said.
The board is expecting the new bid to fetch an approx. Rs 300 crore - around 3/4th of Vivo's value. The latter were contracted to pay the BCCI close to Rs 440 crore per season. "Amazon has that kind of money, it's festival season in India and given the rights window, they can stretch it from Dussera to Diwali to Christmas," say those tracking developments.