CSA hits back at Richardson's 'disparaging' Big-Three remark

The Cricket South Africa (CSA) has expressed shock at the recent 'disparaging' comments attributed to International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive David Richardson that suggested the nation's inability to stand up to the big three countries of the international game.

While speaking at a press conference in Sri Lanka, Richardson said, "The international game has gone through a period of turbulence, where the governance, the financial model, the playing [of the game] was in turmoil by the resolutions passed by the ICC in 2014 [.] what happened in 2014 took place really because unfortunately countries like South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand were not able to stand up to the big boys. I don't think that will happen again."

Hitting back at the comments, CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat said the board found the comments as "frankly nonsense" before insisting that they would take up the matter with the ICC chairman Shashank Manohar.

"If he is indeed correctly quoted, his remarks come as a complete shock to us. For someone who was actually party to the 2014 resolutions to now make such a disparaging remark to CSA is frankly nonsense and insulting to us," ESPNcricinfo quoted Lorgat as saying.

"The CSA Board had from the very outset realised how damaging the original proposals would have been to the global growth of the game and together with Pakistan and Sri Lanka had strongly opposed it. This included CSA making a significant written submission to the ICC Board which had resulted in a number of the original proposals being amended. That's in fact the reason why we are where we are now. The CSA Board will always stand up for what it believes to be right for the game," he added.

Earlier in 2014, the ICC gave additional power to Australia, England and India, which included greater executive and financial clout in the hands of these three's cricket boards.

The move invited a flurry of criticisms from the independent cricket stakeholders and CSA was one of the objectors.

However, following the appointment of Manohar as N. Srinivasan's successor, he spoke of ending the Big Three's "bullying" of the other boards and asked for a return to a more equitable distribution of power and revenue in the ICC.