Barclay completed his term as ICC chair on December 1, handing over the position to Jay Shah for the next three years. In an interview with Telegraph Sport during the Christchurch Test match between England and New Zealand, Barclay touched on several subjects relevant to his tenure, among them the future of Test match cricket, and whether it was feasible for all countries that currently play it to continue to do so.

In particular, he highlighted the plight of Cricket West Indies, which has faced significant financial difficulty over the last few years, particularly heightened during the Covid-19 pandemic. Under the ICC’s model from 2024-27, West Indies will receive a less than a five per cent share of ICC earnings.

“You look at the West Indies, I love what they’ve done for the game, but is the West Indies in its current form sustainable?” said Barclay. “Is it time for them to break into each of their islands?

“The thing is, can they [West Indies] afford to [continue to play Test cricket]? They barely can make their books balance now. What they’ve achieved in cricket is phenomenal when you think that they are a group of disparate islands that don’t really have anything in common, other than cricket, and yet they’ve held themselves together for that period of time as the West Indies.

“But I think one thing that will kind of highlight all that will be with the Olympics and other multi-sport events. They played cricket in the Asian Games last year in China, you’ve got the African Games, [where] cricket featured for the first time. They’re looking at the Pan American Games. So when you’ve got all these multi-sport events, what happens then to the Windies? The Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Barbados turned up as the participant for the region. Is that a little glimpse of what the future looks like? I don’t know.”

In addition to questioning whether continuing Test status was in the best interest of West Indies, Barclay also questioned whether it was in the best interest of Ireland, one of the 2018 additions to the Full Member list. Cricket Ireland cancelled hosting a bilateral series against Australia earlier this year, citing the costs of the series as a factor in the decision.

“There’s some structural change that probably needs to be contemplated,” said Barclay. “Some countries are trying to play Test cricket that maybe shouldn’t. Why are Ireland playing Test cricket? Whatever money they’ve got surely they should be investing into grass roots to try and grow their numbers. The only way to get kids to play the game is in short form. They’re not going to turn up and play red ball all day Saturday, all day Sunday. That’s not going to happen. Every time they’re playing a Test, they lose an enormous amount of money. Again, why would you do that? It makes no sense. Why is Zimbabwe playing Test cricket? They lose money on the broadcast deal, so it makes no sense at all.”

One structural change Barclay mooted was a radical change to how the ICC itself is structured. The organisation currently has 12 Full Members – the 12 men’s Test playing nations – and over 90 Associate members, with the large majority of funds and power shared between the 12 Full Members. Barclary suggested abolishing Full Membership entirely, and allocating revenue purely on a performance basis.

“The West Indies would say why do we go from full member to 14 associates [if we split into island nations]? But that is about really getting the governance thing right. Cricket is almost unique. You’ve got this group of full members, and you’ve got the rest. Surely just dispense with that and go, OK, someone’s number one, and somebody’s number 120. And you can move up and down, get ranked on performance, on and off the field. The higher up you go, the more money you get, the more exposure you get. And if you’re not performing, then you go down.”

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