New Zealand Cricket has backed the proposed changes in the Int'l Cricket Council's administrative structure, "which would leave major decision-making in the hands of India, Australia and England, despite facing severe criticism from the country's players' association," according to the PTI. The New Zealand PA has described the draft proposal of this plan, which will be presented to the ICC Exec Board during its quarterly meeting in Dubai on Jan. 28-29, as "scheming" by India, Australia and England. NZC, however, "is not complaining too much about it." In a statement, NZC Board Member Martin Snedden, who attended the Dubai ICC meeting where the plan was unveiled, insisted that New Zealand would not be "disadvantaged" or "downgraded" under the "changes that are currently proposed" (PTI, 1/20). The PTI also reported the Pakistan Cricket Board said that "it will oppose any overhaul that will cede executive decision-making to India, Australia and England." A member of the PCB governing board said that at the meeting held on Saturday in Lahore, the members had made it clear to reinstated Chair Zaka Ashraf "that the draft proposal should be opposed strongly at the ICC meeting." The member said, "The governing board was firm that this was a very sensitive issue for Pakistan and the PCB should go to the ICC meeting well prepared to give strong arguments against the proposed changes" (PTI, 1/20). In Abu Dhabi, Osman Samiuddin wrote whether or not that vision is fulfilled, potentially as early as the three-day ICC meeting in Dubai from Jan. 27, "depends almost entirely on how the smaller seven act during those meetings, on the sidelines and in boardrooms." Reaction, at least official, public reaction, from those boards "has been almost non-existent." Snedden "cautiously dipped his toes in the coming whirlpool." Snedden: "Do we have power at the ICC table? Not a hell of a lot. Do we have an ability to influence and persuade? A little bit." Some officials of these boards have said that "they still cannot believe what they have read." A "moment of rare levity in one internal board meeting asked who would be relegated if England, Australia and India finish sixth, seventh and eighth?" Will "there be clear opposition to it, however, at the meeting?" It "is looking unlikely." The smallest boards -- financially -- "seem resigned to bargaining their acquiescence." To these boards, "in practice little would change under the proposed system" (THE NATIONAL, 1/20).
