What’s the hassle? India has an audience of over 1 billion. Cricket will never make inroads into the USA, and China will do what it wants to do. Let Australia, South Africa, Pakistan, England and India battle it out - and let New Zealand, Sri Lanka and the West Indies get what they are given. Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Kenya and the others will benefit from the increased profit, cricket will benefit from real contests, and the viewing public will enjoy it. WSC was good for the game and this will be too. If the ICC ran like the present day BCCI, Zimbabwe would have been turfed quite a while ago - because they don’t generate the $$$. Athers is being nostalgic for all the wrong reasons.

I agree with most the views already expressed here. I’m not a big fan of the ICC CT to begin with (I personally think it should be swapped for a 2020 WC but that’s another point). I realise it’s an important source of revenue generation for ICC’s associate and affiliate members, or at least that’s what the ICC tells us is the case. We’ll never know how much of the money generated from it goes into Speed and company’s own pockets and how much into Kenya, Canada, USA, Bermuda, Scotland, Ireland and United Arab Emirate’s cricket development. I’ve never exactly heard any words of praise for the ICC from the cricket boards of these or other minnow countries, in fact at times very much the opposite has been the case.

But even if we ignore this, and believe for a second that the ICC CT is a necessary event on the international calendar, we have to remember that international cricketers are arguably already overworked (and that something needs to be done about this), and that countries (India or otherwise) would not like to host multilateral tournaments smack in the middle of a traditional home season (let’s see if England will agree to host the 2009 CT in May-June or April-May if they were asked to do so). That’s why the ICC should look at revamping the format of this entire money generation exercise; changes are required in my opinion not only in scheduling, but also in the entire format of the game. You also have to feel the ICC hasn’t exactly handled the BCCI very well. Given it was willing to compromise, and hold the tournament at a different time, or change the format to 20 Twenty so that it took less time off from India’s peak season, or some other alternative, then perhaps India wouldn’t have announced it’s withdrawal from future competitions.

Atherton’s ‘anger’ you can feel is stemming from something entirely different, it seems he doesn’t like the whole notion of India being a super power. Well, the bad news for him, is that India will be one, at least in the commercial sense, for a while to come, weather he (and the rest of England) likes it or not.

On the Champs Trophy:
A large part of the problem seems to be the timing of the event. Also, it was originally held by an Associate member. Other than the 2020 WC idea, why not a return to basics (or close to): The top ranked Associate member holds the competition, for which they are rewarded a place in it. I think that any of the Associate members would jump at holding the event, and weather allowing, would be happy to schedule it whenever the ICC, BCCI and the whole boiling lot of politikers decide (and on this - how about a return to democracy based on performance: the top ODI ranked nation gets 10 votes, the next 9 etc.). The other part of the problem seems to be lack of common sense. If the parties involved just sat down and discussed it rather than making wild comments and accusations, it would probably cease to be an issue, and no-one would get egg on their faces.

I dont see the BCCI bothering to respond to Atherton- they dont care, methinks. anyhoo, here are my thoughts

Good editorial on the subject (and ICC greed): http://uk.sports.yahoo.com/060124/28/gh75.html