Greg Barclay, the International Cricket Council (ICC) chairperson, will complete his full two-year term, which ends in November, and the process to elect his successor will take place in December.
The all-powerful ICC board met in Dubai this week and Barclay has told the members that he will complete his two-year term. The ICC constitution states that the chairperson has to be elected every two years, subject to a maximum aggregate term of six years (whether such maximum term is served consecutively or otherwise).
The Telegraph had first reported on April 5 that Barclay was unlikely to continue for a second term and could end his innings after the T20 World Cup in Australia. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah are in the race to occupy the chair.
The annual conference of the ICC will take place as scheduled in July.
“The ICC board has requested Barclay to complete his two-year term. Generally the new chair takes charge at the annual conference and the election process is completed a month earlier. But the board decided to make an exception for Barclay,” a source told The Telegraph.
Barclay took over in November 2020 after a contest with interim chairperson Imran Khwaja following strong backing from the BCCI.
The delay in elections will work well for the BCCI who will get time to finalise its nomination after its AGM in September. There has been talk that Union minister and former Board president Anurag Thakur could also be in the running, but whether he will show interest is not known yet.
Other decisions
Among other decisions, it was decided that 12 teams will automatically qualify for the 2024 men’s T20 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the West Indies and the USA. The tournament will comprise 20 teams for the first time.
The board, however, rejected PCB chairman Ramiz Raja’s ambitious proposal of conducting a four-nation meet.
The board ratified and approved the appointments of Jay Shah, Mahela Jayawardene and Gary Stead among others to the ICC men’s cricket committee. Sourav is the chairman of the committee.
It was also agreed upon that from the next season, Test matches will see the return of one neutral on-field umpire.