The game is undoubtedly entering a new period of volatility, as positions of power and influence start to shift, either by accident, design or a little of both.

‘Marathon Man’, released around the same time the World Series Cricket breakaway was being dreamed up in 1976-77, is a tightly wound, paranoid thriller that begins with a series of seemingly jumbled, unrelated scenes. A road-rage incident escalates into a fatal car crash in Manhattan. A man goes for a run then talks flirtatiously with his new girlfriend in another part of New York. Other characters meet and discuss obscurities in Paris and London.

The film was made memorable by the central plot pitting Laurence Olivier against Dustin Hoffman, the former torturing the latter in a dentist’s chair. But it took its time getting to that point, as all those unrelated early scenes are woven together over the first half-hour or so.

There has been more than a whiff of Marathon Man’s jumbled intrigues about world cricket over the past week or three. Stories about the Essel Group’s registration of cricket business identities in a range of countries have created a hubbub of intrigue and alarm, with emergency ICC committees being set up to investigate the threat. Lalit Modi, an advocate for radical change at the ICC in recent times, has meanwhile denied his involvement, while looking a lot less like a man on borrowed time than those who have opposed him and currently rule world cricket.

The case in point is provided by the ICC chairman N Srinivasan’s apparent targeting of the BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur – and the new office-bearer’s pointed choice to go public with his response – which has made considerable waves in India. It followed on from evidence that Srinivasan’s Indian power base at the BCCI is slowly diminishing, so much so that he may only remain ICC chairman until September. Reports that he is alleged to have hired a London private investigation firm to spy on BCCI board members cannot have helped.

In England, the out-going ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, has created a new position for himself as the incoming ECB president (or is that generalissimo?). Having been the focus of a number of unhappy murmurings among the top administrators at the ICC and ECB, he recently and very publicly exchanged heated words with the Wisden Almanack editor Lawrence Booth at the venerable publication’s annual dinner. Clarke was incensed at Booth’s audacity in criticising the ECB and then choosing the former ICC president Ehsan Mani to deliver an equally stinging keynote address on the night. Booth was moved to tell Clarke to "behave yourself" in the Lord’s Long Room.

And this is not to forget the ICC board’s sudden sanction of Sri Lanka cricket – now marginalised by "the Big Three" at the ICC table – for their newly elected government’s naming of an interim committee, as had been customary for years.

Now it would not be wise to suggest that these happenings will converge in quite the same manner as in Marathon Man – though it is darkly amusing to picture one of the principal characters tying another to a dentist’s chair and "examining" his teeth while repeatedly asking, "Is it safe?" But it is nonetheless worthwhile to join a few of these dots beneath the following summary: cricket is undoubtedly entering a new period of volatility, as positions of power and influence start to change hands either by accident, design or a little of both.

A couple of months short of a year ago, Srinivasan, his right-hand man Sundar Raman, Clarke, the Cricket Australia chairman Wally Edwards and his right-hand man Dean Kino, toasted the "big three" governance coup in Melbourne after its ratification at the ICC Annual Conference. Since then, however, Srinivasan has had to contend with the publication of Justice Mudgal’s findings on corruption in the IPL and conflicts of interest in his ownership of Chennai Super Kings. And it is likely that Raman’s role in global cricket administration will be greatly reduced, as a result of his close alignment with Srinivasan.

Edwards, meanwhile, is running out of time, having committed to leaving his posts at both the ICC and CA as per the custom of board chairmanship in Australia – no more than a pair of two-year terms. Edwards is aware his successor, the former Rio Tinto managing director David Peever, lacks a cricketing background, a strong relationship with India nor much rapport with other ICC board members, meaning Edwards must work doubly hard in his closing months to ensure Australia is not a cricket nation greatly diminished on the global stage by his retirement. Last year’s loss of Kino is also problematic, for he served as CA’s diplomatic and operational link to the BCCI for almost a decade.

Clarke has engineered a rare feat of survival by convincing ECB board members that, in exchange for stepping down from his position as ECB chairman, he deserves to be retained in the newly created position of president even after they decided to move on to a new chairman in Colin Graves. Clarke’s argument that he is essential to preserving the ECB’s currently influential place at the global table also leaves him in line to succeed Srinivasan or whoever the BCCI choose to replace Srinivasan as ICC chairman. But that influence may be aligned to the continuation of Srinivasan’s role at the ICC, an increasingly precarious situation for Clarke.

Apart from swapping a chairmanship for a presidency, Clarke remains the head of the ICC’s finance and commercial affairs committee. This intrigues because another member of the same committee, the ousted SLC president Jayantha Dharmadasa, is now lobbying for reinstatement, while the ICC board pressures Sri Lanka’s governance with the threat of suspending their financial stipend.

Who would lose out most from such a sanction, apart from the scores of followers of the game in Sri Lanka? Why, Ten Sports, the holders of broadcast rights to international cricket in the island nation, and the likely beneficiary of any such breakaway competition, as hinted at by Essel Group’s recently registered businesses and revelations of potential rich cash offers to the likes of David Warner and Michael Clarke. Essel Group and Ten Sports are both owned by Subhash Chandra.

It was only natural, though somewhat ironic given his role in the crushing of the ICL, the breakaway league forged by Chandra, that Modi, in his recent role as cricket’s most high-profile rebel, should be involved in a such a scheme. It now appears that he was interested, and has admitted to speaking with those behind it over a period of months. But as illustrated by Srinivasan’s increasingly shaky ground and Edwards’ looming departure, circumstances have changed.

Might Modi, who has been working alongside Kino in recent months, now be thinking he can return to cricket governance by the front door rather than a tunnel under the current regime? As the various fragments of seemingly random cricket events start to make a more cohesive picture, it is growing more plausible to imagine just such a scenario.

For the moment there are still plenty of loose ends, but less than there were when Essel group registered those names last December. Watching them get gradually tied up will be almost as fascinating as watching Marathon Man, or perhaps another, more factual thriller from 1976 – All the President’s Men. --Cricinfo