Cricket’s Associate Member Directors Election Intensifies Ahead Of ICC Chair Battle

Influential figures are set to contest the upcoming Associate Member Directors election amid jockeying for three coveted positions on the all-powerful International Cricket Council (ICC) board.

The hotly contested battle has major stakes and could tilt the balance of power amongst the sport’s hierarchy ahead of an expected chair election later this year when current chairman Greg Barclay’s second two-year term ends.

The deadline for candidates was on June 18 and results will be known during the ICC’s annual general meeting in Colombo next month.

The three incumbents, Associate chair and ICC deputy chairman Imran Khwaja, Neil Speight and Pankaj Khimji will recontest.

But they will be locked in a tough field of 11, which is set to include rising administrator Mubashshir Usmani, who is on the Chief Executives’ Committee and helped mastermind UAE’s well-heeled T20 league.

Former Associate Member director Mahinda Vallipuram, who lost his spot on the board two years ago, is set to recontest along with long-time Singapore chief Mahmood Gaznavi and former USA cricket governing body administrator Sankar Renganathan who is representing Sierra Leone.

The other candidates are set to be Rudie van Vuuren (Namibia), Gurumurthy Palani (France), Stephen Musaele (Rwanda) and Sam Arthur (Costa Rica).

Under ICC rules, candidates have to be a representative of an Associate Member or a current/past ICC director.

The contest will be held through a ‘weighted’ secret ballot voting system, where voters from 40 Associate Members and five Regional Representatives (Americas, Asia, Europe, East Asia-Pacific and Africa) will each select three candidates in order of preference.

Newly-elected directors will receive two-year terms.

After the election, with possibly a revamped ICC board, the politicking will go into overdrive for a long-winded campaign for chair.

At next month’s AGM discussion is likely to take place over the chair’s tenure which is currently a maximum of three two-year terms. There has been a push to change it to two three-year terms.

All eyes will be on whether India cricket boss Jay Shah, the sport’s most influential administrator, will put his hand up for ICC chair as has long been rumored.