Cricket governance is failing across multiple countries, and Faisal Hasnain argues the ICC board's silence is as damaging as the bad actors themselves.
Cricket governance is not in crisis because a handful of bad actors are running amok. It is in crisis because the people with the power to stop them keep looking the other way.
That distinction matters. The damage being done to the sport right now, from Bangladesh to Sri Lanka, from Afghanistan to Italy to France to the USA, is not purely the fault of those causing it. It is equally the fault of those watching it happen and saying nothing. The ICC board sits at the center of this silence, and the question of why they are not raising these issues is, frankly, a mystery.
Cricket governance at the moment is at its lowest ebb and it is getting even lower than its lowest ebb.
Take France. The French cricket board has lost its license to operate and is still operating. That is not a grey area. That is a governing body failing to govern. Italy is in a state of dysfunction. Meanwhile in the USA, where cricket has been trying to build a serious foothold, governance appears to be nowhere.
"The French cricket board isn't even licensed. They've lost their license to operate. And yet they are operating."
These are not isolated incidents. They are a pattern, and the pattern points upward to the ICC, whose board members seem content to spend their bandwidth on boundary-line catches and pitch conditions while member boards drift into dysfunction or outright illegitimacy.
There is nothing wrong with debating the laws of the game. But that cannot be the headline item when entire cricket boards are dysfunctional.
The argument here is simple: governance is the primary job. Everything else, the competitions, the broadcast deals, the expansion into new markets, rests on a foundation of credible administration. When that foundation cracks, the response cannot be silence.
People who can do something about it are looking the other way.
The ICC board is not powerless here. They have the tools and the authority to act. The question is whether they have the will. So far, the answer appears to be no, and the game is paying for it.
Cricket governance will not fix itself. The small minority causing damage will not stop on their own. It falls to the majority, specifically those with seats at the ICC table, to stop looking the other way and start doing the job they were given.
