Cricket Capital

Only two cricketers made Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in sport. That small number raised a harder question: if cricket carries so little global influence, what do we make of the claim that it's the world's second largest sport? Cricket administrators have repeated that claim for years, and it has settled into received wisdom without anyone seriously checking whether the...

The ICC posted a $543 million surplus in 2025, and that number made headlines. But measured against the ICC's own projections for its current four-year commercial rights cycle, the picture looks considerably different. The target was roughly $600 million per year in surplus distributed to member boards. Across the first two years, the audited accounts show $474 million and $543 million respectivel...

The ICC's 2025 financial statements show over $756 million in revenue and a surplus of $543 million, a margin of nearly 72%. More than 93% of that income came from three events: the Champions Trophy, the Women's World Cup, and the World Test Championship final. The balance sheet now holds over $1.1 billion in member funds, with $959 million earmarked for distribution to member boards. Strong numbe...

For nearly a hundred years, the ICC held its annual conference at Lord's in London. In 2008, after Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Peter Chingoka was denied a visa to attend on political grounds, the ICC drew a line: grant the visa, or the conference moves. The British government held firm. So did the ICC, and a tradition stretching back to 1909 ended. The move to Dubai was a deliberate institutional st...

Two cricketers out of 100. That's cricket's share of Time magazine's inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in sport, and it says something cricket's administrators have been slow to hear. Smriti Mandhana and Temba Bavuma both made the cut, not for statistics or earnings, but for what they represent. Mandhana sits at the centre of women's cricket's commercial rise, a growth story built...

Courtney Walsh had every legal right to run out Salim Jafar in the 1987 World Cup. That dismissal would have kept West Indies alive in the tournament. He warned Salim instead, walked back to his mark, and bowled again. West Indies lost two balls later. That moment is what the spirit of cricket actually looks like: integrity when it costs you something real, not sentiment after the fact. The compil...

Every win in the ICC World Test Championship earns exactly 12 points, regardless of whether you beat the top-ranked side away from home in brutal conditions or beat the ninth-ranked team on a pitch your groundsman tailored to your preferences. That flat structure is a fundamental problem, and this episode breaks down exactly why the current WTC model is unfair, illogical, and mathematically lazy....

Cricket governance is at its lowest ebb, and the damage being done across Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Italy, France, and the USA is not purely the fault of those causing it. It falls equally on those watching it happen and saying nothing. The French cricket board has lost its license to operate and is still operating. That is not a grey area. The ICC board sits at the center of this silenc...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden on a standing room ticket he bought himself. No suite, no entourage, no special treatment. Just a mayor standing with the fans, watching the game the way everyone else did. It's a small act that carries a pointed message about what showing up for sport is supposed to look like. Cricket and sport don't owe anyone an...

Mirra Andreeva won the French Open at 19, and her victory speech included something I genuinely hadn't heard before: a public thank-you to her psychologist. At the highest level of sport, the mental game does enormous work, yet the psychologist almost never gets named alongside the coaches and physios. Andreeva acknowledged the person who helped her handle what she called the inner, invisible, but...

Two months ago, the Bangladesh government unilaterally dissolved a democratically elected cricket board, and the ICC issued no statement, no reaction, and no acknowledgement that it had happened. The ICC's constitution exists precisely to prevent this kind of government interference in member board governance, and a textbook breach of that rule went without any public response from the governing b...

Muhammad Ali died on June 3rd, 2015. Ten years on, the measure of his greatness still sits far outside the ring. A three-time heavyweight champion who moved like a featherweight, Ali was the most recognizable face on the planet at his peak, and he used that platform deliberately, for something larger than titles and purses. The cost he paid for his convictions was concrete and steep. When Ali refu...

Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Ireland are joining the ICC World Test Championship, and I'm going on record early to congratulate all three nations before the official announcement is even made. Keeping them out of the WTC was never justifiable on cricketing grounds, and the ICC is finally doing the right thing. All three countries have earned their place. Zimbabwe has a proud Test history. Afghanista...

The ICC was warned about its governance crisis in 2012, when Lord Wolf concluded that cricket cannot be run properly when politics, national interests, and money drive decisions. That report went largely unactioned, and the consequences are visible now: the India-Pakistan standoff, the Bangladesh disputes, and a board that routinely avoids the hard calls when they matter most. The root of the prob...

Every time a cricket team loses, the captain gets roasted while selectors, coaches, the director of cricket, and administrators walk away untouched. Captains don't pick squads, don't control contracts, and don't design long-term strategy. They work with the players they've been given, inside a system they didn't build. Blaming them alone is scapegoating dressed up as accountability. Modern cricket...

Cricket boards that endure financially, the England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia among them, share a common structure: diversified income. Long-term broadcast deals, strong home series, commercial partnerships, and disciplined cost management all working together means no single revenue stream carries the whole weight. Boards that lean too heavily on one source, whether a single b...

Twelve countries hold Test status, but only nine play in the World Test Championship. Zimbabwe, Ireland, and Afghanistan have been left out since the competition's inception, and the ICC is now reconsidering that arrangement. It is a correction that should have happened from day one. The case for exclusion has never held up. Keeping these three nations out of the WTC while pointing to their relati...

Hosting the Women's T20 World Cup in England and calling it a step toward growing the game is a bit like selling biryani in Mumbai and announcing you've done a great job spreading biryani around the world. England is the home of cricket. The fans are already there. The infrastructure is already there. Nothing new is being built. The ICC has a mandate to grow cricket globally, but its major event c...

A video game company builds an entire product around a famous cricketer, using their face, physique, batting style, and signature celebrations. The game sells millions of copies. The cricketer never signs a contract, never gets a call, and never receives a rupee. That scenario is not hypothetical, and it sits at the center of what image rights actually mean for professional athletes. Image rights...

Seven parties filed objections to the ACE rescue package for USA Cricket's bankruptcy case, and the most consequential one came with a competing bid attached. The National Cricket League submitted its own offer directly challenging the trustee's claim that ACE was the only viable funder available, exposing a central weakness in the argument for skipping a competitive process entirely. At stake in...

$24,000 to grow the game! Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/24000-to-grow-the-game-

The ICC's constitution prohibits government interference in national cricket boards, but the enforcement mechanism is broken. Instead of acting on observable violations, the ICC waits for the affected board to formally complain. This creates an impossible situation: boards that have been dissolved or taken over by government appointees are in no position to report their own political capture. It's...

Losing teaches valuable lessons without cost Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/untitled