The 2014 Wisden has some decidedly meaty topics to digest, and it duly devours them.

"In most years", the publishers proclaim, England's "worst-ever" performance - in their descent to a 5-0 Ashes whitewash - would be the dominant thrust of the 100-plus pages of comment which traditionally precede another 1,500 or so grounded in statistics and chronicle.

Not so this time, however, because the constitutional overhaul of world cricket - "colonial-style divide and rule", in the words of editor Lawrence Booth - pushes even starkly-contrasting back-to-back Ashes, and their seismic aftermath for England, into "second billing".

It is hard to argue against that premise, if it was indeed a "takeover" of the International Cricket Council by the 'Big Three' of a pre-eminent India, then England and Australia in no particular order, that was completed in Singapore in February.

Ashes whitewash, the axing of England's record runscorer Kevin Pietersen, the resignation of team director Andy Flower, an uncertain future for captain Alastair Cook and whoever is named the next coach are all perhaps division two in the grand scheme.

In the wider world, even the retirement of greats Sachin Tendulkar and - from Test cricket - Jacques Kallis are events from which cricket will doubtless recover.

As such, they are accorded prominence - Tendulkar, bat aloft after his final innings in his native Mumbai, unsurprisingly adorns the yellow-jacket cover - but are not prioritised.

Instead, the method and consequence of the ICC's agreement to establish the 'Big Three' as power base for future policy is scrutinised above all.

Booth opens the innings with an everyman 'Monty Python' reference - "Something's actually happening!" - and appropriates it to a rationale that the Board of Control for Cricket in India is, to all intents, in the process of replacing the ICC.

"The boards of India, England and Australia quietly crafted a document which claimed to safeguard the game's future, while more obviously safeguarding their own," Booth writes.

"In sum, the BCCI wanted an even larger slice of the ICC pie, and the ECB and Cricket Australia happily acquiesced, knowing their portion would grow too ...

"It was hard to read this in any other way: the rich would be getting a whole lot richer ...

"[Cricket's] future health relies not only on the willingness of the smaller nations to get their own houses in order, but also on some form of benevolent dictatorship. The benevolence could do with some work."

For topicality and posterity, Wisden's state-of-the-nations address is admirably conveyed.

Gideon Haigh's essay - 'Divide and Rule at the ICC, The great carve-up of world cricket' - provides illuminating, and alarming, extra context; and England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Giles Clarke's first-hand account of events offsets the scepticism with some finer points of clarification, as well as the observation of an "absurd furore" as, he suggests, some in the media conducted a wilful misinterpretation of an initial draft paper.

Clarke rounds out the debate, but all around him is evidence that Wisden is worried about what is to come.

It appears less so about what has gone, on the pitch, with the exception perhaps of its consequences for Cook's new England.

The end of Pietersen's England career came in part because "almost no one close to events wanted [him] to stay", and therefore "the party was over"; Flower leaves his post less equivocally in credit, but at a time when his regime had perhaps run its course.

As for Cook, the balance sheet is beginning to make grim reading thanks to a "bottom line" which - by the end of back-to-back Ashes - "read 5-3 to Australia ... (but) "felt like 10-0".

In Wisden's estimation: "When England's Test summer starts on June 12 against Sri Lanka, [Cook] will be watched closely, probably more closely than a sportsman deserves."

Tendulkar and Kallis are also, of course, given their due - Tunku Varadarajan and Neil Manthorp respectively doing the subjects proud with content above and beyond what is generally known or appreciated about two all-time greats.

The measured yet rightly reverential tones applied to Tendulkar and his astounding career, especially, appeal as a healthy alternative to what might conceivably have been yet more reams of eulogy without reason.

Tendulkar's legacy, it is gleaned, will extend for many generations for hundreds of millions in India and beyond.

Yet the question still most pressing in Wisden 2014 is the size and nature of the influence which will be brought to bear on his sport by Tendulkar's compatriots in committee rooms.

It rated a mention at time of going to press that BCCI president and imminent ICC chairman N Srinivasan's knowledge or otherwise of corruption in last year's Indian Premier League was of interest to the Supreme Court.

Wisden notes in consideration of the ICC's future: "Only cricket could move back in time while hailing a revolution."

It later adds: "We await the day we are told cricket's pinnacle is Mumbai Indians v Chennai Super Kings."

Finally comes the conclusion: "As India prepare to take their 'central leadership responsibility', international cricket holds its breath."

:: Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2014 is published today, Wednesday April 9, at the retail price of £50.