No country is bigger than ICC: Jay Shah

"This ICC World Cup was very important because there was a lot of chatter before the start of the tournament about whether certain teams would participate and how the World Cup would go ahead.

"As ICC chairman, I can say that no team is bigger than the organisation and no single team makes an organisation. An organisation is a combination of all teams," Shah said without taking the name of any team.

"The World Cup has shattered all viewership records. For the first time in history, we recorded 7.2 million concurrent viewers. All records were broken in overall viewership. If you see, the USA gave India a hard time, the Netherlands troubled Pakistan, Zimbabwe beat Australia and Nepal gave England a scare. I congratulate all the associate teams - they have done very well against the full members," the ICC chairman noted.

He also advised Suryakumar and Gambhir to plan for the future. "I have a message for Surya and Gautam Bhai - slipping from the top to the bottom takes only months, while climbing from the bottom to the top takes years. Keep working hard and keep winning awards. When I was in the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), I had planned till the 2028 Olympics. Now I am in the ICC and others are in charge at the BCCI. All of you should prepare for 2030, 2031 and even 2036."

Shah was the secretary of the BCCI from October 2019 to December 2024 and has since taken over as the chairman of the ICC. During his tenure at the BCCI, India won two U-19 Men's World Cups, two U-19 Women's World Cups, finished runners-up twice in the ICC World Test Championship, were runners-up in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, and won two ICC Men's T20 World Cup titles as well as the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025, besides several trophies at the continental level.

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