- By Gurmeet Batra
- Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:35 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
In a shocking revelation, former England cricketer and match referee Chris Broad has levelled some explosive allegations against the International Cricket Council (ICC) for blatant leniency shown to India during his 21-year tenure as a match referee.
The 68-year-old Broad is currently the third-most experienced referee in cricket history, serving as a match referee from 2003 to 2024, refereeing 622 international matches across formats.
In an interview with The Telegraph, he also disclosed the incidents of political influence within cricket's governing body.
The father of England pace legend Stuart Broad, Chris, whose contract was not renewed by the ICC in 2024, claimed that when he was a match referee, he was told to show leniency to India’s over-rate offences.
“I was very happy to carry on. But for 20 years, I dodged a lot of bullets, both politically and physically. I look back and I think, ‘you know, 20 years is quite a long time to be doing that job,' Broad told in an interview with The Telegraph.
"I’m pleased not to be travelling to certain parts of the world. And I was always someone who believed in right and wrong and in certain parts of the world it’s a bit like the River Ganges – right and wrong are so far apart and there’s a lot of dirty water in between them that you have to deal with, so I think as someone who comes from a right and wrong perspective, to last 20 years in that politically active environment is a pretty good effort," he added.
Broad disclosed the specific incident involving former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly, but did not reveal details of the exact match. He also recalled how the world cricket body pressured him to “find time” calculations to benefit India.
“India were three, four overs down at the end of a game, so it constituted a fine. I got a phone call saying, ‘Be lenient, find some time because it’s India’. And it’s like, right, OK. So we had to find some time, bring it down below the threshold. The very next game, exactly the same thing happened," the former England cricketer said.
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"He [Sourav Ganguly] didn’t listen to any of the hurry-ups, and so I phoned and said, ‘What do you want me to do now?’ and I was told, ‘Just do him’. So there were politics involved, right from the start. A lot of the guys now are either politically more savvy or just keeping their heads below the parapet. I don’t know," he further added.