It is not yet too late to save cricket, but greed is sucking the game’s lifeblood dry, writes Stephen Brenkley

COMMENT: There are 10 full member nations of the ICC and the majority are in hock or in turmoil

Tournaments around the world like Australia’s Big Bash featuring Kevin Pietersen (right) have sprung up in the wake of India’s IPL (Getty Images)

Another year has almost gone by in the best job in the world. Forgetting for a moment, as if it were possible, the unalloyed joy of reporting a series in which the Ashes were regained and a bristling period when England cricket in general rose from ashes of a different kind, it is impossible to look back with satisfaction or forward with optimism.

The greatest game on the planet (with respect to the others, especially you know what, trying to purloin our column inches) is in trouble. It has plenty of money, or seems to have, but it could hardly fail to be rich when there are so many television stations jostling to fill so much airtime. A swelling bank balance brings neither success nor status, let alone happiness.

There are 10 full member nations of the International Cricket Council and the majority are in hock or in turmoil. The ICC itself is in danger of becoming a trough in the desert where the countries that have annexed it, like so many invading forces before them promising harmony and a better life for all, have primarily lined their own pockets.

Led superficially by a benign, capable chief executive in David Richardson, who wields little control and despairs of a system that he knows could be repaired with a little more democratic government and co-operation, it is beginning to betray the idea of creating a global game (which was always a touch overreaching). The ICC lost much credibility, probably for ever, after the Woolf Report in 2012.

This was commissioned by the ICC as part of an independent review and made recommendations for sweeping change, the most significant of which suggested more rights for smaller nations, in part to ensure the health and the growth of the game. When the ICC head honchos received this report, rather than act on it in a mature, responsible fashion they ditched it.

Instead, they came up with their own scheme, which meant essentially that India with England and Australia would run the show from now on and everybody else could dance to their tune. Or not, in which case the consequences would be effective self-excommunication.

Lord Woolf, the man behind the report and one of life’s most eminent judges as former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, was aghast. He said it was “a really alarming position for the future of cricket” and “a retrograde step”. Just in case people might think he was sitting on the fence, he added: “It seems to be entirely motivated by money.”

Since then it has been pretty much downhill all the way and in 2015 the decline continued when the money was divvied up for the first time and the rich got more and the poor got less. To assess the 10 full member countries is not a pretty undertaking. But it is evident that the growing disparity in the standards of these Test-playing nations will prove to be cataclysmic.

Nobody seems to be recalling the old truism that to win you need someone to play. Many more care about it than watch it but the ICC pays sonorous lip service, organising limited-overs tourneys, compiling ranks. The recent day-night Test in Adelaide was a roaring success but to hail it as a panacea is a load of pink balls.

India rule all. England and Australia like to think they have joined forces with them at the head of the ICC table but they are in all probability mere lickspittles who would make Uriah Heep proud.

The Indian Premier League, in truth a motley tournament of dubious playing standard and moral standing, remains a glittering monument to bad taste and the future (and some of the more sensible England players deride it). Look at the other T20 tournaments that have sprung up round the world – prolonging careers and wonderfully entertaining though some of their matches are – while Test cricket wallows in an ICC of neglect. Fading, fading.

India’s abuse of their power is still no better summed up than by their treatment of the Decision Review System. DRS is clearly imperfect but it is equally clearly a good thing because it rectifies most incorrect decisions. For a while it was official ICC policy (twice in fact) but it was quietly dropped as such because India refuses to use it. A form of DRS is used in every international match except those involving India.

In England there is much angst over how many counties there should be (12 is probably the answer) and how they should be grouped. The new chairman, Colin Graves, is determined in a much less pompous and blustery fashion than his predecessor Giles Clarke (ie pragmatic, sensible, collegiate) to inspire change, such as part-time professionals, yet that is but part of the issue with fewer and fewer playing the game.

In no particular order but with equal desperation, it needs girls, it needs inner-city communities, it needs kids. It is never too late. But in 2015 – though not, of course, on the glorious 6 August in Nottingham when nothing else mattered – it was possible to wonder.