ICC may end rotation system for president

DUBAI: International Cricket Council ICC is planning significant change to governance of the game by scrapping the rotation policy currently in operation for appointing presidents. The change is likely to be put up for endorsement at June's annual general meeting of board members in Hong Kong.

Under the current system, two members who are to put up next candidates for President and Vice-President are Pakistan and Bangladesh and both are believed to object to the change. But ICC sources say plans are underway to change this system. The main topic of discussion at an ICC governance committee meeting in Chennai last week was the rotation policy.

Such a change may have had its genesis in the fate that overtook former Australian Prime Minister John Howard when he was nominated for ICC vice-presidency in 2010. The rotational choice of Australia and New Zealand, Howard was rejected out of hand by other nations, causing heated debate at last year's annual conference in Singapore. New Zealander Alan Isaac was ultimately chosen instead.

When post of President was first created at the ICC, each full member appointed one man for the post on a rotational basis: Jagmohan Dalmiya from India, Malcolm Gray from Australia, Ehsan Mani from

Pakistan and Percy Sonn from South Africa were the men appointed under this system.

In 2007, the system was tweaked and post of Vice-President was also created. Though rotation stayed as a policy, nominations now came from pairs of countries: Australia-New Zealand, West Indies-England, India-Sri Lanka, Pakistan-Bangladesh and South Africa-Zimbabwe.

Copyright PPI (Pakistan Press International), 2011