Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ramiz Raja's proposal for a four-nation tournament has been unanimously rejected by ICC. As per Ramiz Raja’s proposal, a four-nation annual T20I series would be played featuring India, Pakistan, Australia, and England and it would be run by the ICC itself. His projections for the revenue were huge, given the presence of arch-rivals India and Pakistan playing each other regularly, as the two nations do not play bilateral cricket anymore and only clash in ICC and Asia Cup events. As per the reports from PTI, Ramiz Raja’s proposal projected revenue of USD 750 million for the next five years, which was to be distributed amongst the members of the ICC.
However, the proposal was unanimously rejected by the ICC board members including the BCCI. The Indian board, BCCI was very clear from the start that it will not play in the four-nation tournament given that their international calendar was choc blocked and it had many bilateral commitments to honor. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the ICC didn’t want to devalue their own marquee events as they have aimed for an ICC event every year going forward. “In any case, ICC’s Financial and Commercial Affairs Committee (F&CA) was against this proposal. As we know that the MPA (Members Participation Agreement) doesn’t allow any member nation to host more than tri-nation, organising four-nation every year would have in any case devalued ICC’s own marquee events,” a board member told PTI. There were reports that ECB's Tom Harrison was also independently interested in exploring ideas of a four-nation tourney but it's now evident that nothing of that sort happened at board meeting.
