shot before the season.The current asking price is $9,000

World cricket has had to deal with a mind-bender this week. It began with the biggest of the Big Three (the BCCI) standing up for the smallest and weakest of their tribe when BCCI president Anurag Thakur said two-tier Test cricket was fundamentally against the basic purpose and identity of the ICC.This placed the BCCI directly against the Big Threes Minor Two (Cricket Australia and the England & Wales Cricket Board) as the passionate backers of two-tier Test cricket. CA and ECB were supported by Cricket South Africa (CSA), who have made a stirring comeback to the big stage, and by New Zealand Cricket (NZC), largely loyal allies to anyone who needs their number. Two years ago, CSA had been cast into the darkness by the Big One with not a squeak of protest from the Minor Two. But two years are an eon in cricket administration and in CA, ECB and CSA, we now have a Mid-Sized Three promising to steer cricket towards yet another new dawn.Once the BCCI had stood up for the cricket boards of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, the two-tier plan was out the window before it even made it to the table. But wait. This has happened before. In the 1990s, it was called the Asian Block v the Old Order and Jagmohan Dalmiya headed those conflagrations. So where are we today? Has cricket gone back to the old days? Is it Asia v the Old World? But where is Pakistan? Wasnt South Africa usually on the BCCIs side? Whats happening?After the Dubai ICC meeting, which the ICC insists was not a meeting but a members workshop, all that remains is a vast vagueness.The first public mooting of the two-tier Test idea was heard in June this year from ICCs chief executive David Richardson, who said, A number of member countries are finding that theyre not getting as much from their TV rights for bilateral cricket and they see the need to change and introduce some meaningful context.The buzz words that offer us some clues in Richardsons statement are TV rights. They will help us understand that, contrary to popular belief, Two-Tier is not the Jedi Knights of the ECB-CA-CSA versus the Imperial Stormtroopers of the BCCI fighting over the Kingdom of the White Flannels. The two-tier Tests form only a small part of a larger drama unfolding over the play field of cricket politics.Over the next 24 months, two key media rights cycles will be going on sale. This month, the ECB is expected to offer to the counties their plan for an eight-team city-based T20 league, as well as a revised version of international cricket coverage. It is rumoured that the ECB will go into the market for the next set of TV rights deal within the next few months, a year before their deal with Sky TV (estimated to be about ￡280m over four years) runs out in 2017. This deal, first signed in 2012, forms 80% of the ECBs income.The bid for Cricket Australias international rights, up for sale around 2018 for the 2018-2023 period, will have to match the $500m it earned from Channel 9, in the face of the overwhelming popularity of its Big Bash.So what the ECB, CA and CSA (with the support of the boards of Pakistan and New Zealand) are seeking is to form a collective to ensure bigger, better, more watertight broadcast deals for their international bilateral series, particularly when they face increasing pressure from domestic T20 leagues - a pooling together of overseas rights by a group of countries, to be overseen and managed by an independent administrative body.One of the reasons cited is the shrinking of the Indian market, due to the fact that the Indian broadcasters interested in buying overseas rights have shrunk from three to two. The coalition is expected to offer its member boards the power of collective bargaining with broadcasters. Whichever TV network wants to broadcast the Ashes in India will also have to buy the Pakistan v New Zealand bundle, or whatever other package the coalition wants to put together. If this new multinational coalition of the willing so wishes, that independent administrative body could well be the ICC.If this new coalition does come into being - and there are plans to push it through before the ICCs October board meeting - it hopes to lead to far less dependence on every member nations bilateral deals with the BCCI. It is what the Mid-sized Three hopes will work to rope in a few more doubting comrades. In theory that is. Whether such camaraderie outlasts the self-interest hardwired into every cricket boards DNA will make for the tactical and psychological case studies of the future.A successful push for the two-tier system would have helped these boards, the CA and ECB in particular, ensure that they wouldnt have to deal with home-and-away tours against weaker nations. West Indies, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe would have been immediately dropped from the top tier and would not have featured in these countries international calendars when offered to broadcast bidders. Cricketing arguments were made forcefully and loudly over the uncomfortable fact that economic benefits of the two-tier Tests would earn for a select few over the less privileged.?You could argue that the BCCIs stand against two-tier cricket, even while acknowledging that it has the confidence of being able to dictate terms to broadcasters rather than vice versa, turned out to be quite rather Jedi Knight. In terms of giving Test matches primacy, the BCCI is hosting 13 this year and the team has just returned from four Tests in the West Indies. Over the last three years India have toured Zimbabwe three times and played 11 ODIs and five T20Is against them.Another proposal that emerged from the Dubai workshop was about a playoff to pick an official Test champion once every two years. The top two ranked teams will face off in a single Test to decide a winner, though who would own the rights or make the revenues isnt clear yet. The ICCs old FTP, in which every country plays the other home and away in a four-year cycle is now being discussed as a nebulous six-year cycle, with every team playing the other at least once. More vagueness.There is another dynamic at work here - the running battle between the BCCI and the ICCs newest chairman, Shashank Manohar, who headed the BCCI not too long ago. The BCCI believes that Manohar is responsible for betraying its cause and passing word onto the other members that in the face of the Lodha Committee recommendations, the BCCI is rowing up a very dangerous creek and the time to strike at its control over international cricket is now.Manohars icy response was: Im the independent ICC chairman, so I have to look at the best interests of the ICC. Its for the BCCI representative to look after the best interests of the BCCI. But he also said he didnt agree with the two-tier system. Personally, I was against the idea, because the value of the second-tier teams would be negligible.Crickets suits are going to launch themselves into another bloody skirmish between now and October. Dont go looking for Jedi Knights among them, because there arent any. The only Force that works here is cash. Custom Bernie Parent Jersey . The players spoke Jan. 13 during a Major League Baseball Players Association conference call after Rodriguez sued the union and Major League Baseball to overturn an arbitrators decision suspending him for the 2014 season and post-season. Cheap Custom Flyers Jersey . Jon Montgomerys gold medal in skeleton at the Whistler Sliding Centre and his subsequent auctioning off of a pitcher of beer in the village square elevated him to folk-hero status. http://www.customflyersjersey.com/ . The All-Pro lineman got the leg bent under him while trying to make a tackle during the first half of a 22-20 overtime loss at Miami on Thursday night. The medical staff initially thought hed torn the ligament, and the test a day later in Cincinnati confirmed it. Flyers Jerseys China . Didier Drogba gave away the penalty that put Senegal one goal away from a major upset, but the veteran striker will get another chance -- probably his last -- at the World Cup after Salomon Kalous injury-time strike sealed the Ivorians place in Brazil next year. Custom Flyers T-shirts . -- The St. Johns IceCaps weathered a wild first period with the help of goaltender Jussi Olkinuora, before finding offensive inroads in the second. Louisville quarterback Lamar Jacksons three-interception performance -- in a second straight upset loss -- made a bettor holding a potential $10,000 ticket on the Heisman Trophy favorite nervous enough to put what seems like a genuine lock up for sale.On Sunday, a $100 ticket on Jackson to win the Heisman Trophy was posted on Nevada sports betting market site PropSwap, a service that allows customers to buy and sell live tickets. The $100 bet on Jackson was placed at the Westgate SuperBook when he was a 100-1 long shot before the season.The current asking price is $9,000.Per Nevada Gaming Control regulations, the states sportsbooks halted betting on the winner of the Heisman Trophy on Nov. 20. Jackson closed as a massive 1-50 favorite at the SuperBook, but that was before the Cardinals lost straight-up to Kentucky as 28-pooint favorites.dddddddddddd. Point spread-wise, its the second-biggest upset of the season to this point, behind only South Alabamas win over Mississippi State as a 28.5-point underdog.The current owner of the $10,000 Jackson ticket bought it from the original bettor for $4,000 in the middle of the season. He became concerned about not only Jacksons performance against Kentucky, but also didnt like that his perceived closest competition -- Washington quarterback Jake Browning and Clemson quarterback?Deshaun Watson?-- will each be playing in championship games this week, while Jackson wont be.Watson closed at 20-1, with Browning at 30-1.The winner of the Heisman Trophy will be announced Dec. 10. ' ' '