The Club

The fascinating story of cricket’s world governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), and how it grew into a multi-billion-dollar business.

This meticulously researched and authoritative history reveals how: (1) privileged aristocrats and mining magnates turned cricket into a ‘civilizing’ force of empire, promoting the politics and prejudices of their class; (2) cricket’s world governing body evolved – from its early days in St John’s Wood, London as the Imperial Cricket Conference into the International Cricket Council, a multi-billion-dollar sporting business, based in Dubai and increasingly dominated by a financially and politically ambitious Indian elite; (3) the ICC failed to deal effectively with such challenges as the Bodyline controversy, apartheid in South Africa and Kerry Packer’s commercialization of the game; (4 )media rights deals and global events sponsorship have created new problems: match-fixing, administrative corruption and the threat from franchise leagues

This is the first full account of the ICC’s origins and its roots in imperialist ideology, charting its rise from a talking-shop into a multi-billion-dollar global business driven by massive worldwide TV audiences.