The International Cricket Council (ICC) four-day annual conference concluded with the Annual General Meeting today and there have been two notable developments. The ICC Board had informal discussions yesterday and during the ICC & IBC Board meetings this morning, it was confirmed that there will be a thorough “review into the delivery of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024”.
“The ICC Board confirmed that there will be a review into the delivery of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. This will be overseen by three directors, Roger Twose, Lawson Naidoo and Imran Khwaja who will report back to the Board later in the year,” the global body said in a media statement.
While there were no further details, it is understood that overshooting of budgets will be thoroughly investigated and focus will remain on the USA leg of the multi-nation event. As reported by CricketNext earlier, Pankaj Khimji, who lost the Associate Member Directors election on the opening day of the conference, had written a letter to all the members calling for a thorough investigation of expenses.
USA Cricket put “on notice”
In another development, USA Cricket and Cricket Chile have been formally put on notice. It was further decided that a “Normalisation Committee” would oversee and monitor USA Cricket’s compliance roadmap and continuous non-compliance would lead to suspension.
“USA Cricket and Cricket Chile have been formally put on notice and have 12 months to rectify their current non-compliance with the ICC Membership Criteria. Neither Member is considered to have in place a fit-for-purpose detailed governance and administrative structure and systems.
“The ICC Americas office will work with Cricket Chile to support them in remedying their non-compliance. The Board agreed that a Normalisation Committee comprising of Board and Management representatives will be set up to oversee and monitor USA Cricket’s compliance roadmap and the ICC Board will reserve its right to suspend or expel the Member for continued non-compliance,” said the global body.
The road ahead is going to be a challenging one for the cricket body in the USA as hours before the ICC decision, three directors (Kuljit Singh, Arjun Gona and Patricia Whittaker) of USA Cricket wrote to the global body’s top brass and ethics committee and explained the messy state of affairs. In a ten-page document titled “USAC Board Governance and Ethical Failures”, the three directors highlighted the “unethical termination of CEO Dr Noor Murad” and explained in detail about the “lack of transparency”.
Not just administrative matters, the detailed letter also mentioned how a national T20 plan was allegedly obstructed by the current leadership of USA Cricket. It was prepared by the former CEO Dr Murad in August last year but wasn’t implemented for months.
In the concluding note, the three office bearers mentioned the ICC is aware of how the four CEOs were terminated in the last few years and urged the global body to take decisive action. The decisive action has been taken and USA Cricket now has only 12 months to get their act right.
USA Cricket chairman Venu Pisike says they submitted their explanations before the AGM and welcome the appointment of “normalisation committee”.
“The ICC raised serious concerns in their March notice issued to USA Cricket regarding several governance and operational matters. We believe the report was inequitable and submitted without first validating the issues with us. We submitted our explanations before the AGM, including clarifications to all the concerns raised.
We strongly believe that compliance and strong governance are critical for the success of cricket in the US. We thank the ICC Board for considering our views and allowing us to address any pending issues. We welcome the appointment of the normalization committee to assist USA Cricket in becoming compliant,” says Pisike.
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