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- Oct 2, 2004
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A former President of the International Cricket Council (ICC), Ehsan Mani, is a vociferous proponent of good governance in the matters of running Cricket at a global level.
Mani's association with cricket started in his early life in Pakistan, where he was playing for the Rawalpindi Club and Government College Lahore XI from 1959 to 1965 as a right-hand batsman and a left-arm fast medium bowler. From 1989 to 1996, Mani represented the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in the ICC. For the 1996 Cricket World Cup, he was on the advisory committee as the PCB representative. He was also on the same committee during the 1999 Cricket World Cup played in England. In 1996, he was elected by the ICC member nations to the position of Chairman of the ICC Finance and Marketing Committee.
He held on to this post until it was dissolved in June 2002. After that he took over as the Vice-President of the ICC Executive Board. He has also served on a number of ICC Committees, such as the Chairman's Advisory Committee, set up to advise Lord Cowdrey and Sir Clyde Walcott during their stint as ICC President. Other committees he has been a part of are the Rules Review Committee and the Governance and Organisation Committee. In June 2003, he became the ICC President, a position he held until 2006.
With this solid background of management of the game at the highest level, Mani was the first of many dissenting voices that spoke against the 'Big 3' proposals to overhaul the ICC's role in the running and development of cricket. This is a position that he maintains to this day, even after the initial furore over the changes to ICC's governance structure seems to be losing it's momentum.
In an exclusive interview with PakPassion.net, Mani spoke about the basis for his opposition to the influence of the 'Big 3 over the ICC's governance structure, criticized Pakistan Cricket Board for it's weak stance on the handling of the 'Big 3' and the Mohammad Amir issues and also questioned the moral stance of BCCI to allow IPL in UAE where they had refused to play Pakistan in the past.
PakPassion.net : You have always been outspoken against the influence of the ‘Big 3’ on the ICC. Has your stance changed in recent times, especially given a change in Pakistan’s position under Najam Sethi’s leadership?
Ehsan Mani : Absolutely not. It really does not matter whether it’s Pakistan or any other country that accepts this situation, the whole principle is wrong. My position would have been the same even if Pakistan was part of the initiative in the first place or had been part of ‘Big 4’. Simply speaking, what is being proposed is bad for cricket.
The whole governance structure of ICC has taken a huge step backwards. In the rest of the world and certainly in every developed economy such as the UK or Australia or New Zealand or for that matter even in India or Pakistan, corporate governance demands transparency in decision making processes and in the way moneys are earned and revenues accounted for. What is being proposed by the ‘Big 3’ lacks total transparency and is being mooted by people who have personal vested interests or who have conflict of interests and are a beneficiary of their own proposals. It is very disquieting as far as I am concerned and also for governance of world Cricket for this to be pushed through.
PakPassion.net : If it was one country pushing for this change then one could suspect some foul play, but here we have 3 members – 2 of which are well known for high standards of governance within their own systems? How would you counter that?
Ehsan Mani : To me, the 2 members of the ICC – Australia and England – are the real culprits in this situation. What they have done, because of their own self interest and in order not to upset India, is to impose standards of governance on the ICC which they themselves would not apply to their own organizations. If you were to compare the governance standards that the ICC has in place today with what these boards have, you would find a huge difference. So, it’s clear to me that the ECB and CA bear the most responsibility as to where cricket will find itself today.
PakPassion.net : The fact is that the many of the smaller nations are going along with the ‘Big 3’ which could be a result of a “carrot and stick” approach. How does that reflect on these nations?
Ehsan Mani : This is why I refer to the governance structure. The ICC’s mandate is to act in the best interest of ALL cricket playing nations and to promote the game worldwide and to expand it. Cricket will never flourish if 8 or 9 countries play the game at the highest level.
The ICC for years, and certainly upto and during the time I was president, had a priority to have a structural growth of cricket round the world. The idea was to bring in nations like the USA and China where they could start playing the game seriously and in the long term, they would produce huge amounts of money and resources for the ICC and its members. As we know, the American sports market is worth hundreds of billions of Dollars per year. Cricket gets excited over earning a few billions over 8 -15 years or so which is really nothing. The fact is that cricket today needs a vision or visionaries and not intellectual midgets who can run the game!
PakPassion.net : The Pakistan stance on the ‘Big 3’ has changed between the tenures of Zaka Ashraf and Najam Sethi. Is this change of stance based on sound reasoning or political expediency?
Ehsan Mani : No, I don’t agree with the Pakistan stance. What the PCB is trying to do is to come to an accommodation and to take a pragmatic decision. That doesn’t make it right. What the PCB is trying to do is make the best of a bad situation. That is the bind it finds itself in today.
Unfortunately due to the structure and mismanagement of cricket in Pakistan, we find ourselves in a situation that at a critical juncture when this was happening and proposals were being mooted earlier this year, Pakistan had no leadership. We had one Chairman who had been thrown out, went to the court and came back. The other one went out and is now back again! This does not bode well for Pakistan cricket. This basically exposed two things here. One was that there was absolutely no depth in the management in Pakistan Cricket. So basically, you remove the top man and the policy changes, followed by another change in direction as a new person comes in as Chairman. That tells me that the governance of Cricket in Pakistan is seriously flawed.
The Chairman, in my view, should be no more than a figurehead who carries out the policy of the Board and oversees the implementation of those policies. What we have instead, is that the Chairman of the Board sets out the tone and policy according to his mood and way of thinking, without being accountable to anyone. The whole structure is wrong in Pakistan.
PakPassion.net : The issue of governance aside, do you feel that Pakistan had an option or clout to disagree in with the proposals set forth by the ‘Big 3’?
Ehsan Mani : Pakistan had lots of options, which I really don’t want to go into the details now. However, I will say again that they were options which Pakistan could have taken and could still take now, which could stop the whole thing. One has to understand that there is very little sympathy for the ‘Big 3’ at the moment. If you look around the world, there are no great former cricketers who came out and said that this was good for world cricket. Equally, one would be hard pressed to find any international sports writer who says that this is wonderful for cricket. They all know why this is happening. This is happening because of greed and self interest of these three countries. It’s also due to the pressure and bullying tactics they have applied on other boards to give in. So all in all, there is very little sympathy but unfortunately the leadership in all the boards round the world leaves a lot to be desired. They have weak leaders and they will compromise and appease people. As you know, the policy of appeasement is not the answer. As history is witness, this is the type of policy that even lead to the 2nd World War, and that is the kind of stance which has lead to the position that the non 'Big 3' Boards find themselves in today.
PakPassion.net : What future do you see for the ICC with the ‘Big 3’ in charge of its policies?
Ehsan Mani : The ICC will be totally undermined as long as these 3 countries are involved with the three individuals who represent these countries in charge. They are clearly not acting in the best interest of the members. Certainly, when I was in charge of the ICC, Pakistan was just another member country for me like Zimbabwe, England, Australia, India or New Zealand. There were no special favours granted to Pakistan.
My responsibility was to every country in the world including the lesser known cricketing ones such as Singapore or Gibraltar. These people (‘Big 3’) on the other hand, are there to make sure that they can extract as much in terms of resources for their own countries. They obviously have a conflict of interest here. The sad thing is that in 2012, the ICC itself commissioned a governance review. The representatives from Australia and England who are there today, were themselves there when the Woolf Report was submitted regarding the governance of the ICC. There were a number of recommendations made by the review and these people have not seen it fit to implement even one of those. That tells us a bit about the agenda of these people and their motives which are clearly aimed at diluting the standing and authority of the governing body.
PakPassion.net : IPL in the UAE has been the subject of many discussions in the recent past. How do you see this development, especially in terms of future matches between Pakistan and India as well as development of the game in the region?
Ehsan Mani : The UAE has some fantastic facilities. They have 3 world class stadia in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. There is a huge population base of Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans so there is bound to be huge support for a tournament like the IPL. It’s also a great tool for development of cricket in the Middle East and there is nothing wrong with that.
IPL has its own route. It’s a form of cricket which is really great for people who really don’t have the time to watch the longer form of the games, in particular Test matches. It’s great that this is happening in the UAE, however the advent of IPL in the UAE shows the hypocrisy of the BCCI, who for years said that they would not play in the UAE. They came up with all sorts of reasons such as corruption for not playing Pakistan whilst blaming their government for not allowing their team to play in UAE. All that has now been exposed as being based upon the money that the BCCI is now making from playing in the country, as opposed to any sound moral stance.
In my view, it would be great to see a revival of Pakistan-India cricketing relations. Cricket isn’t owned by the Boards. The main stakeholders are the millions of fans in India and Pakistan. Fans from both nations want an India-Pakistan series. A match between these two teams is watched by more people than any other cricket match in the world. It’s great for the game and it’s great for the promotion of the game. It’s also fantastic for the players to be part of that experience and of course, from a cricketing perspective, I welcome the resumption of ties between these two nations.
PakPassion.net : Are you concerned or disappointed about the non-participation of Pakistani players in the IPL, especially since part of it was held in UAE in front of a population with a large number of Pakistani supporters?
Ehsan Mani : Unfortunately, the BCCI plays a political card. Sometimes, they put the blame on the Government of India’s shoulders and at other times, it extracts concessions from the PCB. This is likely to continue for a while and the most frightening thing is that the same people who are running BCCI today are the ones who are looking to take over the reigns of the ICC as well. Can you now imagine what Pakistan’s position will be if this is allowed to happen?
PakPassion.net : Mohammad Amir’s ban is coming to an end by September 2015. Do you feel that he should be allowed back into cricket and has the PCB done enough to fight his case?
Ehsan Mani : The PCB is so badly structured that there has been no consistency in the approach to how they have handled the Mohammad Amir situation. Yes Amir was guilty, he admitted to his guilt as well and he was punished. However, what people forget is that the commission that imposed the sanction of a five year ban was sympathetic to him. If you read their report what they said was that they were not able to impose a lighter sentence on him as the rules of the ICC did not permit them to take that route.
If I had been running the PCB at the time of Amir's ban, what I would have done is to make a case to go back to the ICC and table a resolution to reduce the ban to a lesser degree. Make no mistake that in my view, he should have been banned and punished which he has been. However, even the commission that banned him felt that five years was too much and they actually invited ICC to reconsider their own rules to see if anything could be done. But as usual, the PCB leadership was weak and lacking to take this on a professional basis. The lack of professionalism is totally exposed when these things happen.
PakPassion.net : Do Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt also deserve similar sympathy by the PCB or is it more a case of political expediency when it comes to supporting Mohammad Amir?
Ehsan Mani : The case of Asif and Butt is different in my view and I would not lift a finger to help them. Their cases are different as are the judgements against them. These two kept on denying all along that they were involved in corrupt practices, whereas Amir admitted to his own guilt. They fought tooth and nail and even went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne and lost there. Then when every door was closed for them, they asked for mercy. They are lucky they got only five years as in my view, they deserved more than that.
Mani's association with cricket started in his early life in Pakistan, where he was playing for the Rawalpindi Club and Government College Lahore XI from 1959 to 1965 as a right-hand batsman and a left-arm fast medium bowler. From 1989 to 1996, Mani represented the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in the ICC. For the 1996 Cricket World Cup, he was on the advisory committee as the PCB representative. He was also on the same committee during the 1999 Cricket World Cup played in England. In 1996, he was elected by the ICC member nations to the position of Chairman of the ICC Finance and Marketing Committee.
He held on to this post until it was dissolved in June 2002. After that he took over as the Vice-President of the ICC Executive Board. He has also served on a number of ICC Committees, such as the Chairman's Advisory Committee, set up to advise Lord Cowdrey and Sir Clyde Walcott during their stint as ICC President. Other committees he has been a part of are the Rules Review Committee and the Governance and Organisation Committee. In June 2003, he became the ICC President, a position he held until 2006.
With this solid background of management of the game at the highest level, Mani was the first of many dissenting voices that spoke against the 'Big 3' proposals to overhaul the ICC's role in the running and development of cricket. This is a position that he maintains to this day, even after the initial furore over the changes to ICC's governance structure seems to be losing it's momentum.
In an exclusive interview with PakPassion.net, Mani spoke about the basis for his opposition to the influence of the 'Big 3 over the ICC's governance structure, criticized Pakistan Cricket Board for it's weak stance on the handling of the 'Big 3' and the Mohammad Amir issues and also questioned the moral stance of BCCI to allow IPL in UAE where they had refused to play Pakistan in the past.
PakPassion.net : You have always been outspoken against the influence of the ‘Big 3’ on the ICC. Has your stance changed in recent times, especially given a change in Pakistan’s position under Najam Sethi’s leadership?
Ehsan Mani : Absolutely not. It really does not matter whether it’s Pakistan or any other country that accepts this situation, the whole principle is wrong. My position would have been the same even if Pakistan was part of the initiative in the first place or had been part of ‘Big 4’. Simply speaking, what is being proposed is bad for cricket.
The whole governance structure of ICC has taken a huge step backwards. In the rest of the world and certainly in every developed economy such as the UK or Australia or New Zealand or for that matter even in India or Pakistan, corporate governance demands transparency in decision making processes and in the way moneys are earned and revenues accounted for. What is being proposed by the ‘Big 3’ lacks total transparency and is being mooted by people who have personal vested interests or who have conflict of interests and are a beneficiary of their own proposals. It is very disquieting as far as I am concerned and also for governance of world Cricket for this to be pushed through.
PakPassion.net : If it was one country pushing for this change then one could suspect some foul play, but here we have 3 members – 2 of which are well known for high standards of governance within their own systems? How would you counter that?
Ehsan Mani : To me, the 2 members of the ICC – Australia and England – are the real culprits in this situation. What they have done, because of their own self interest and in order not to upset India, is to impose standards of governance on the ICC which they themselves would not apply to their own organizations. If you were to compare the governance standards that the ICC has in place today with what these boards have, you would find a huge difference. So, it’s clear to me that the ECB and CA bear the most responsibility as to where cricket will find itself today.
PakPassion.net : The fact is that the many of the smaller nations are going along with the ‘Big 3’ which could be a result of a “carrot and stick” approach. How does that reflect on these nations?
Ehsan Mani : This is why I refer to the governance structure. The ICC’s mandate is to act in the best interest of ALL cricket playing nations and to promote the game worldwide and to expand it. Cricket will never flourish if 8 or 9 countries play the game at the highest level.
The ICC for years, and certainly upto and during the time I was president, had a priority to have a structural growth of cricket round the world. The idea was to bring in nations like the USA and China where they could start playing the game seriously and in the long term, they would produce huge amounts of money and resources for the ICC and its members. As we know, the American sports market is worth hundreds of billions of Dollars per year. Cricket gets excited over earning a few billions over 8 -15 years or so which is really nothing. The fact is that cricket today needs a vision or visionaries and not intellectual midgets who can run the game!
PakPassion.net : The Pakistan stance on the ‘Big 3’ has changed between the tenures of Zaka Ashraf and Najam Sethi. Is this change of stance based on sound reasoning or political expediency?
Ehsan Mani : No, I don’t agree with the Pakistan stance. What the PCB is trying to do is to come to an accommodation and to take a pragmatic decision. That doesn’t make it right. What the PCB is trying to do is make the best of a bad situation. That is the bind it finds itself in today.
Unfortunately due to the structure and mismanagement of cricket in Pakistan, we find ourselves in a situation that at a critical juncture when this was happening and proposals were being mooted earlier this year, Pakistan had no leadership. We had one Chairman who had been thrown out, went to the court and came back. The other one went out and is now back again! This does not bode well for Pakistan cricket. This basically exposed two things here. One was that there was absolutely no depth in the management in Pakistan Cricket. So basically, you remove the top man and the policy changes, followed by another change in direction as a new person comes in as Chairman. That tells me that the governance of Cricket in Pakistan is seriously flawed.
The Chairman, in my view, should be no more than a figurehead who carries out the policy of the Board and oversees the implementation of those policies. What we have instead, is that the Chairman of the Board sets out the tone and policy according to his mood and way of thinking, without being accountable to anyone. The whole structure is wrong in Pakistan.
PakPassion.net : The issue of governance aside, do you feel that Pakistan had an option or clout to disagree in with the proposals set forth by the ‘Big 3’?
Ehsan Mani : Pakistan had lots of options, which I really don’t want to go into the details now. However, I will say again that they were options which Pakistan could have taken and could still take now, which could stop the whole thing. One has to understand that there is very little sympathy for the ‘Big 3’ at the moment. If you look around the world, there are no great former cricketers who came out and said that this was good for world cricket. Equally, one would be hard pressed to find any international sports writer who says that this is wonderful for cricket. They all know why this is happening. This is happening because of greed and self interest of these three countries. It’s also due to the pressure and bullying tactics they have applied on other boards to give in. So all in all, there is very little sympathy but unfortunately the leadership in all the boards round the world leaves a lot to be desired. They have weak leaders and they will compromise and appease people. As you know, the policy of appeasement is not the answer. As history is witness, this is the type of policy that even lead to the 2nd World War, and that is the kind of stance which has lead to the position that the non 'Big 3' Boards find themselves in today.
PakPassion.net : What future do you see for the ICC with the ‘Big 3’ in charge of its policies?
Ehsan Mani : The ICC will be totally undermined as long as these 3 countries are involved with the three individuals who represent these countries in charge. They are clearly not acting in the best interest of the members. Certainly, when I was in charge of the ICC, Pakistan was just another member country for me like Zimbabwe, England, Australia, India or New Zealand. There were no special favours granted to Pakistan.
My responsibility was to every country in the world including the lesser known cricketing ones such as Singapore or Gibraltar. These people (‘Big 3’) on the other hand, are there to make sure that they can extract as much in terms of resources for their own countries. They obviously have a conflict of interest here. The sad thing is that in 2012, the ICC itself commissioned a governance review. The representatives from Australia and England who are there today, were themselves there when the Woolf Report was submitted regarding the governance of the ICC. There were a number of recommendations made by the review and these people have not seen it fit to implement even one of those. That tells us a bit about the agenda of these people and their motives which are clearly aimed at diluting the standing and authority of the governing body.
PakPassion.net : IPL in the UAE has been the subject of many discussions in the recent past. How do you see this development, especially in terms of future matches between Pakistan and India as well as development of the game in the region?
Ehsan Mani : The UAE has some fantastic facilities. They have 3 world class stadia in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. There is a huge population base of Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans so there is bound to be huge support for a tournament like the IPL. It’s also a great tool for development of cricket in the Middle East and there is nothing wrong with that.
IPL has its own route. It’s a form of cricket which is really great for people who really don’t have the time to watch the longer form of the games, in particular Test matches. It’s great that this is happening in the UAE, however the advent of IPL in the UAE shows the hypocrisy of the BCCI, who for years said that they would not play in the UAE. They came up with all sorts of reasons such as corruption for not playing Pakistan whilst blaming their government for not allowing their team to play in UAE. All that has now been exposed as being based upon the money that the BCCI is now making from playing in the country, as opposed to any sound moral stance.
In my view, it would be great to see a revival of Pakistan-India cricketing relations. Cricket isn’t owned by the Boards. The main stakeholders are the millions of fans in India and Pakistan. Fans from both nations want an India-Pakistan series. A match between these two teams is watched by more people than any other cricket match in the world. It’s great for the game and it’s great for the promotion of the game. It’s also fantastic for the players to be part of that experience and of course, from a cricketing perspective, I welcome the resumption of ties between these two nations.
PakPassion.net : Are you concerned or disappointed about the non-participation of Pakistani players in the IPL, especially since part of it was held in UAE in front of a population with a large number of Pakistani supporters?
Ehsan Mani : Unfortunately, the BCCI plays a political card. Sometimes, they put the blame on the Government of India’s shoulders and at other times, it extracts concessions from the PCB. This is likely to continue for a while and the most frightening thing is that the same people who are running BCCI today are the ones who are looking to take over the reigns of the ICC as well. Can you now imagine what Pakistan’s position will be if this is allowed to happen?
PakPassion.net : Mohammad Amir’s ban is coming to an end by September 2015. Do you feel that he should be allowed back into cricket and has the PCB done enough to fight his case?
Ehsan Mani : The PCB is so badly structured that there has been no consistency in the approach to how they have handled the Mohammad Amir situation. Yes Amir was guilty, he admitted to his guilt as well and he was punished. However, what people forget is that the commission that imposed the sanction of a five year ban was sympathetic to him. If you read their report what they said was that they were not able to impose a lighter sentence on him as the rules of the ICC did not permit them to take that route.
If I had been running the PCB at the time of Amir's ban, what I would have done is to make a case to go back to the ICC and table a resolution to reduce the ban to a lesser degree. Make no mistake that in my view, he should have been banned and punished which he has been. However, even the commission that banned him felt that five years was too much and they actually invited ICC to reconsider their own rules to see if anything could be done. But as usual, the PCB leadership was weak and lacking to take this on a professional basis. The lack of professionalism is totally exposed when these things happen.
PakPassion.net : Do Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt also deserve similar sympathy by the PCB or is it more a case of political expediency when it comes to supporting Mohammad Amir?
Ehsan Mani : The case of Asif and Butt is different in my view and I would not lift a finger to help them. Their cases are different as are the judgements against them. These two kept on denying all along that they were involved in corrupt practices, whereas Amir admitted to his own guilt. They fought tooth and nail and even went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne and lost there. Then when every door was closed for them, they asked for mercy. They are lucky they got only five years as in my view, they deserved more than that.
Simple logic.
