“I think, wow, I’m at the top of the game and I can’t tell you who’s playing around the world. In fact, I didn’t realize Sri Lanka was in South Africa until I read about Marco Jansen’s seven wickets this morning,” Barclay said. “So we’ve lost perspective. It’s not good for the game at all. It’s a mess. The calendar is incredibly congested and the self-interest is such that it’s almost impossible to sort it all out, because nobody wants to give up their satisfaction.”

Barclay said he hoped Shah would be able to use India’s stature to take the game out of the mess it was in. “I think he has a great opportunity to use what he has in his background to help India take the game to another level, but without also doing it under the yoke of India,” Barclay said. “We’re really lucky to have India, they’re a massive contributor to the game across all the measures, but a country with that amount of power and influence distorts a lot of other outcomes, which isn’t necessarily helpful in terms of global growth.

“Jay has the ability to bring India even further into the international fold. There are a number of things that India could do to help unify and grow the game, including commercially helping to bundle off-shore rights by use their teams to provide opportunities for less full members and emerging countries that use their influence to open new territories and markets, and work closely with the ICC to help members set examples.”

Barclay also warned of an impending financial adjustment the game could be forced to make in the form of its next media and commercial rights deal. The current rights deal is the most lucrative the ICC has signed, worth over US$3 billion. The majority of this value has come from the Indian market, where Disney-Star* has the rights to broadcast ICC events until 2027. This has resulted in revenue distributions to Full Members of a size they have never seen before, and it is has become particularly important for members such as the PCB, NZC, CWI, SLC and CSA, for whom annual ICC revenue constitutes a significant proportion of their total earnings.

“If you really want to make a political statement, don’t play them in a World Cup. Of course it might cost you a semi-final place, but principles are principles. It’s not about having half-principles.”

Greg Barclay on Cricket Australia’s position on Afghanistan

Barclay said the deals were ultimately “way over” the actual value and that there will be a correction over time.

“At some point it will get better,” he said. “It’s a market. Is it going to be a sharp, severe correction? Or is it going to be a long, slow correction? Or maybe there will be an alternative TV provider coming into the market? But people have said that 10 years ago now had New Zealand cricket a deal with Amazon but it didn’t work so I don’t think they’re going to be the white knight that everyone expects we have in front of us is what we have.

“I know when we did our current deal it was well above what the valuations we got before we went to market. We got £2.4bn straight out of India. The second biggest is UK Sky. They made an eight-year deal which was for £237 million, so that’s 10% of the deal in India for twice as long could even be less than that.There’s no appreciable replacement for that at the moment.

One of the prominent issues that marked Barclay’s time was the Afghanistan Cricket Board not being given permission by the country’s Taliban government to field a women’s team. Fielding a women’s team and women’s program is a central tenet of full membership and, despite calls to suspend membership, Barclay said the ICC had been right not to sanction Afghanistan’s membership status.

“It’s not the fault of the Afghanistan board. They used to have women’s cricket. I think our approach has been right,” he said. “It would be easy to kick Afghanistan out, but their board has done nothing wrong. They’re just working under a decree and a set of laws that say that’s what you’re supposed to do. I don’t think that would make a difference to the ruling party there to kick them out.

“Maybe I’m a bit naive but I think cricket is such a force for good there and it brings a lot of joy to a lot of people. It’s better to leave it there and hope it can promote a little bit a change.”

Instead, Barclay pointed to the double standards of governing bodies – such as Cricket Australia – that have canceled several bilateral series with the Afghanistan men’s team as a sanction, but have played them at ICC events. “If you really want to make a political statement, don’t play them in a World Cup. Of course it might cost you a semi-final place, but principles are principles. It’s not about having half-principles.”

*Pakinomist is part of Star India Pvt Ltd