by Our Sports Desk

ENGLAND and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) president Giles Clarke could be hauled before MPs to explain his role in the governance of world cricket.

Clarke represents the ECB on the International Cricket Council and was instrumental in effecting the controversial “big three takeover” alongside Indian and Australian counterparts N Srinivasan and Wally Edwards.

Clarke, Srinivasan and Edwards occupy three permanent seats on the powerful executive committee, while Clarke chairs the finance and commercial affairs committee.

There has been widespread criticism of the way in which the revenue distribution of the global game has been reorganised, with India, England and Australia taking a greater share of the pot.

The #changecricket campaign has been set up in response, led by journalists Jarrod Kimber and Sam Collins, whose recent film Death of a Gentleman is a scathing critique of the administrators.

The pair held a silent protest outside the Oval ahead of the fifth and final Ashes Test yesterday, joined by dozens of supporters including Conservative MP Damian Collins.

Collins sits on the culture, media and sport select committee and plans to float the idea of Clarke answering questions from the group.

“As a member of the committee it’s something I’ll be looking at and something I would welcome,” he said.

“It is a decision for the committee but I will see if they would be interested in taking it further. Certainly one of the roles the House plays is asking people questions they seek to avoid.

“I’ll certainly be raising it with the committee when Parliament is back to see if there is an appetite to take this further.”

The #changecricket protest featured a wreath “mourning the death of cricket as a global sport” as well as a lone bugler playing The Last Post prior to the three-minute silence.

Collins said: “Thanks to the three big nations that run world cricket — England, Australia and India — who also control 52 per cent of the game’s revenues, Test cricket is being sacrificed in favour of the short forms of the game. The other 102 countries who play the game have access to only 48 per cent of the revenues.

“And, at a time when every other sport wants to expand, the ICC is actually shrinking the Cricket World Cup and doesn’t want to participate in the Olympics.”

The ECB declined to comment on Collins’s remarks.