Some countries are totally afraid to offend India, says Boycott

“If a majority of the ICC countries believe that the DRS is a good improvement for international cricket, they should vote for it and say, ‘Sorry India, you are in a minority.’ It’s supposed to be a democracy around the world, where the majority takes precedence,” Boycott said.

“But there is fear to offend, and some countries are totally afraid to offend India. The sooner they get around to it and say, ‘No. Since a majority of us believe it is good, we’re going to do it,’ the better. Simple as that. India won’t like it, but you can’t be run by one country,” he added.

India has vehemently opposed the DRS, saying it does not trust the technology to be foolproof, blocking its usage in the upcoming tour of England most recently. Boycott said it is just the fear of BCCI’s money might that is preventing other Boards from speaking up in favour of DRS.

“Many countries that play cricket are frightened to death of India’s financial power. You’ve got to understand that before you get to voting on anything at the ICC,” he said.  Boycott said the argument that resentment to BCCI’s influence in the ICC stems from other countries’ discomfort with shifting of the balance of power towards Asia, does not hold much ground.

“If you believe it was wrong earlier... and there are some people like my friend Sunil Gavaskar. He says that England and Australia ran the Imperial Cricket Conference, when it was called that, and he’s right. They used to have two votes each, the other countries had one. That wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. Now everybody has one vote,” he said.

“If it wasn’t right back then, two wrongs don’t make a right.”