• Source:JND

T20 World Cup 2026: The relationship between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the cricketing world has grabbed all the attention before the upcoming mega event. Both the Bangladesh and Pakistan Cricket Boards have protested by either pulling out from the World Cup or boycotting their match against India, and thus, the ICC has asked BCCI to rethink the power they hold in modern cricket.

Ex-PCB chief Najam Sethi had said that the reason why PCB and BCB were created was that they wanted to warn the BCCI.

In an interaction with India Today, Sethi revealed that the relations have long been strained, and things got worse when the BCCI used its power as the richest board and bullied the ICC.

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“I’m not a spokesman for the PCB, I’m giving you my view. The PCB consulted the government, and they made this decision. There are 10-15 days to go before that match. I sense that there are negotiations that are taking place, and I hope that those negotiations will bear fruit,” Sethi was quoted as saying to India Today.

‘Mr Srinivasan came to me and said…’

“It’s the attitude of the BCCI, that’s the problem. At every stage, they’ve been bullying people. Pakistan used to be isolated; it was one amongst ten at the time, and then everybody used to side with India. There was no point in standing out. I negotiated the final entry to the Big Three; we were the final ones, and we said no, we don’t want to be part of the Big Three,” he added.

Sethi also talked about why PCB had a problem with the revenue-sharing format, and that's why they protested so that it would be distributed more evenly. And this also included having a bilateral series between India and Pakistan in Srinivasan's term.

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“Nine members signed on, and Mr Srinivasan came to me and said, ‘Why do you want to be left alone, blah blah blah, you will be isolated,’ and the rest of it. We had decided to stand aside and be okay with it, because it was an inherently inequitable principle. They said okay, we will revise it, we will increase the shares of other members, including ours, and they agreed to play a series with us to make up for the previous losses we had incurred,” he said.

‘Can you think of a bigger insult?’

But things didn't go as planned, as BCCI withdrew from the negotiations without any warning, and Sethi called it the biggest insult.

“The contract was fine, but a year later, on the eve of the series, the BCCI, without a word, pulls out. I went to Mumbai in October of that year to sign on the dotted line and get everything sorted out, and they wouldn’t even see us at the hotel. Can you think of a bigger insult?” he added.

“The chairman and I went to Mumbai, sat in the hotel, and the BCCI sent a message saying sorry, we can’t meet you. And we’d been invited to come to Mumbai,” he said.

Talking about the current situation, Sethi revealed that if both Pakistan and Bangladesh could join hands for a sport that is dominated by India. He revealed that these short-term effects can look severe but would be worth the pain.

“They’ve been treating us very badly. Now that Bangladesh has been snubbed in a sense, we feel there are 400 million people on one side. We can all stand up. The philosophy behind the thinking in Bangladesh and Pakistan now is that it’s time to stand up,” he said.

“The inequitable policy positions the ICC takes just because the BCCI is running the ICC… There may be temporary losses, but at the end of the day, we will get a better, reformed ICC,” he concluded.


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