BCCI used to pay top teams to visit India

NEW DELHI: Reacting to criticism that the Indian cricket board (BCCI) is trying to take over world cricket by changing ICC's pecking order, a top Board official said that in the eighties, BCCI used to pay top cricket playing nations like the West Indies and Australia to play against India.

"BCCI used to pay more than half-and-million dollars as guarantee money for inviting teams like the West Indies and Australia home. That time no one had a problem," a top BCCI official told TOI on Friday.

In fact, BCCI claimed that some of the top boards were against India's participation at the 1983 World Cup in India as then captain Kapil Dev's team wasn't producing good results.

Now, things have changed. With more than 80% money used in cricket coming from India, BCCI is eyeing a bigger chunk from ICC's revenue as India apparently needs to spend more on the game than any other Test playing nation.

Regarding BCCI's demand on continuing with the Champions Trophy, the Board said it BCCI that conceptualized the tournament in the first place. "And it should continue. In between, ICC introduced more than eight teams for the tournament. Last year in England, it was a great success because only the top eight teams took part in the event," the official explained.

"Cricket is big here compared to any other nation and BCCI needs money to popularize the game. What the Indian board is asking the ICC is not something unacceptable. The other Test playing nations are aware of it," he added.

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Shweta Pandey

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