THE England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has made a pitch for quadrangular tournaments. At the Chief Executives Committee (CEC) meeting of the International Cricket Council (ICC) in Dubai on Friday, Tom Harrison, the CEO of the ECB, said that the members should be allowed to organise four-nation championships at convenient windows.

The current ICC rules restrict the multi-lateral engagements to only triangular events.
The ECB thumbs-up provides a shot in the arm for the project that Ramiz Raja, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), has been pushing for at the ICC.

Although Harrison’s call is independent of Raja’s pet project involving India, Pakistan, England and Australia, the timing of the ECB CEO’s argument is unlikely to leave the ICC managers with too many options. It comes just a day ahead of the all-powerful two-day board meeting that started yesterday.

Cricbuzz understands that the ECB was backed by a few other boards, including Cricket West Indies (CWI) and obviously by the PCB too. It is further learnt that there was not much opposition and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is believed to have remained neutral.

The dissenting voice, it is understood, was from the members of Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee (F&CA), who are believed to be of the view that too many multilateral tournaments could dilute the value of the World Cup.

“The matter was discussed by the CEC and it was backed by quite a few boards, if not by the F&CA. The matter goes to board with two points of view,” an ICC member, who was part of the CEC, told this website confirming the discussion.

The ICC will be required to amend its constitution should the members feel that the quadrangular events can be permitted.

Raja, meanwhile, will present his paper today with emphasis on extra revenue, share of which can be distributed among the Associate members too. Finding a window for the proposed event is a problem but Raja once told this website that if a window cannot be found for such an event, then cricket will be doomed. “You got to break barriers for the sake of the game and the fans,” he had said. (Cricbuzz)