International Game Must Come First, Says Lorgat

England's dismay over the flagging credibility of the International Cricket Council deepened further this week when 13 Bangladeshi professionals signed up to play Twenty20 for the unauthorized Indian Cricket League. It might not sound too disturbing at first sight, but the knock-on effects for England could be disastrous.

From the ICC there was no emergency statement, merely the reminder that there was a committee which would consider such things. So Bangladesh went to Lalit Modi, the Indian businessman who to all intents and purposes now controls the world game. He promised them a greater share of India's Twenty20 riches. Bangladesh would be allowed to field a team in the Champions Twenty20 League and they would have greater opportunities, too, in the Indian Premier League, with their best players put up for auction.

Modi was oblivious to the small matter that the IPL, provisionally scheduled for April-May 2010, will clash with Bangladesh's tour of England, just as the IPL clashes next year with a Sri Lanka tour that remains in confusion. Quite which Sri Lanka and Bangladesh players will be left to tour England is anybody's guess.

Haroon Lorgat, the ICC's chief executive, recognises that the governing body faces one of its greatest ever challenges: to bring sense and stability to cricket's chaotic, unsustainable calendar. He tries to put a positive slant on the turmoil caused by Twenty20's rising popularity.

"Out of a difficult situation can come a lot of good," he said. "If there wasn't an interest in the sport there wouldn't be so many challenges. I would rather come into a scenario where things are moving at great speed, with new forms of cricket and a new audience.

"Twenty20 is an opportunity that people have spotted they can take advantage of, but that doesn't detract from what has been agreed by all members that we will not sacrifice nation-v-nation cricket. Everyone recognises its importance. People are not disregarding it.

"All these tournaments are springing up and what we are trying to do is regulate them in a more effective way. A private businessman might have different ambitions but we have to protect the game of cricket."

So far, for all Lorgat's talk, the ICC has simply surrendered to Indian machinations. The move away from Test cricket to an Indian-controlled future, based largely on club Twenty20, where they control 50% of the profits, looks unstoppable. England chose the moral high ground and walked away from such a deal; Australia and South Africa, desperate for a short-term solution to their ailing finances, capitulated.

Lorgat believes that the trend can be slowed by four Test series in the next year, all of them involving Australia, who are in India for a four-Test series beginning next month, and who then play South Africa in home and away series before arriving in England for next summer's Ashes series.

But international cricket is plagued by weak nations. Pakistan is blighted by terrorism - more than 50 people were killed in last weekend's bomb at the Islamabad Marriott, a hotel that Lorgat claimed was safe for this month's canceled Champions Trophy. Zimbabwe, even given healthier political circumstances, would do well to recover in a generation. Bangladesh have been drained by Twenty20 as Sri Lanka could so easily be. South Africa will be debilitated by English county cricket unless the immigration authorities bow to ECB entreaties to toughen visa regulations - at least here the signs are promising.

"Transformation is something that has affected the entire globe in all areas: politics, cricket, whatever," Lorgat said. "The world is a changed place. We have to learn to adapt. To say that the ICC is a mess is unfair. The ICC is a member-based organization. People must understand that."