No country is bigger than ICC: Jay Shah

ICC Chairman Jay Shah broke his silence on the just-concluded T20 World Cup, which faced uncertainty before its start last month. He asserted that no team is bigger than the organization.

"This ICC World Cup was very important because there was a lot of chatter before the start of the tournament about whether certain teams would participate and how the World Cup would go ahead. As ICC chairman, I can say that no team is bigger than the organisation and no single team makes an organisation. An organisation is a combination of all teams," Shah said without naming any specific team.

Following prolonged negotiations, Bangladesh withdrew from the competition citing security reasons, while Pakistan threatened to pull out of their fixture against India.

"The World Cup has shattered all viewership records. For the first time in history, we recorded 7.2 million concurrent viewers. All records were broken in overall viewership. If you see, the USA gave India a hard time, the Netherlands troubled Pakistan, Zimbabwe beat Australia and Nepal gave England a scare. I congratulate all the associate teams – they have done very well against the full members," Shah noted.

Shah was speaking at an awards function in Mumbai on Saturday, attended by Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav and coach Gautam Gambhir.

He advised them to plan for the future: "I have a message for Surya and Gautam Bhai – slipping from the top to the bottom takes only months, while climbing from the bottom to the top takes years. Keep working hard and keep winning awards. When I was in the BCCI, I had planned till the 2028 Olympics. Now I am in the ICC and others are in charge at the BCCI. All of you should prepare for 2030, 2031 and even 2036."

Shah was the secretary of the BCCI from October 2019 to December 2024 before taking over as ICC Chairman. During his BCCI tenure, India won two U-19 Men's World Cups, two U-19 Women's World Cups, were runners-up twice in the ICC World Test Championship, runners-up in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, and won two ICC Men's T20 World Cup titles as well as the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025.