New Delhi: In a move that promises to radically alter the manner in which cricket worldwide is run, the International Cricket Council’s executive board meetings in Dubai on Tuesday ended with “unanimous support” for the proposals that effectively hand the Board of Control for Cricket in India enormous powers.
In a “position paper” that had first mooted the alterations in the way the ICC will function hereafter — and which had run into bitter opposition almost as soon as its contents were leaked — the BCCI and the cricket boards of England and Australia emerged as the key decision-makers in the world body as a bulk of the proposals were accepted without much fuss or demur.
In a statement following the board meeting in its Dubai headquarters, the ICC said that a set of relating to the future structure, governance and financial models of the ICC had received “unanimous support”.
Though there were minor deviations from the stand outlined in the leaked document with respect to a two-tier Test format with the status of India, England and Australia guaranteed, the far more important areas covering finance and administration got the go-ahead. The ICC statement said that Board recognised the need “for strong leadership of the ICC, involving leading members, which will involve BCCI taking a central leadership responsibility.”
The meeting backed “the establishment of an Executive Committee (ExCo) and Financial & Commercial Affairs Committee (F&CA) to provide leadership at an operational level, with five members, including BCCI, CA and ECB representatives. Anybody from within the Board can be elected to chair the Board and anybody from within ExCo and F&CA can be elected to chair those Committees.
“With the ICC undergoing a transitional period that includes a new governance structure, this leadership will be provided for two years from June 2014 by: a BCCI representative to chair the ICC Board, a CA representative to chair the ExCo and an ECB representative to chair the F&CA.”
In effect, the Board handed leadership over to BCCI president N. Srinivasan, who is expected to take the top seat, besides having a significant say in the decisions of the ExCo and F&CA as it is widely recognised that much of the initiative for change has come from him.
With respect to cricket itself, the ICC said, “There will be an opportunity for all members to play all formats of cricket on merit, with participation based on meritocracy.
A Test Cricket Fund paid equally on an annual basis to all full members (except the BCCI, CA and ECB) will be introduced to encourage and support Test match cricket.”
ICC president Alan Isaac was quoted as saying. “This is an important time for world cricket and it is extremely encouraging that the ICC Board has unanimously supported a set of far-reaching principles that will underpin the long-term prosperity of the global game.”
Added ICC chief executive David Richardson, “An enormous amount of effort has gone into developing a comprehensive set of proposals that include inputs from all members.”
