L Siva elected to ICC and Tim May ousted.... more than Cricket alleges some... !!

With so many IPL matches, you breathe Cricket……… there is so much into it.  Have just posted on the election of L Sivaramakrishnan, but before you feel proud of that, there seemingly is more smoke…….. read my earlier post here L Siva elected… and this post is part 2…. !!

The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989. The ICC has 106 members: 10 Full Members that play official Test matches, 36 Associate Members, and 60 Affiliate Members.  Alan Isaac, the former chairman of New Zealand Cricket, is the President of the Council who succeeded Sharad Pawar, former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.The current CEO is David Richardson who succeeded Haroon Lorgat.

The ICC cricket committee is a leading decision-maker for the game's governing body in on-field matters, including playing conditions such as the use of the DRS to review umpiring decisions.  The ICC confirmed Sivaramakrishnan's appointment in a release on Monday, saying: "Sangakkara and Sivaramakrishnan were recently elected by a vote of the 10 Test captains, and will serve on the Cricket Committee for a three-year term from 2013-15.”  It was stated that based on nominations received by it, the ICC board had proposed three names - those of Sangakkara, May and Sivaramakrishnan - for the two players' representative positions. Sangakkara, sole current player, is expected to be elected unanimously while Sivaramakrishnan is believed to have received six of the ten votes in the other slot, for former players.

Now there is something brewing……… it is alleged that in the initial vote, May had won 9-1 but the BCCI used its financial might to coerce the Cricket Boards of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe into asking their respective captains to vote for Sivaramakrishnan.  Some reports quote  FICA`s legal advisor Ian Smith as stating that Boards were pressurised despite ICC warnings of not interfering in the secret ballot.   A miffed Federation of International Cricketers Association on Tuesday demanded an ICC ethics committee enquiry into BCCI-backed L.Sivaramakrishnan’s appointment as a players’ representative in the governing body, saying captains could have been forced to vote against incumbent Tim May. Jimmy Adams, former West Indies captain and FICA president, said the election has created serious doubts about the credibility of the ICC.

A couple of days back, Indian Express had this interesting report titled “ICC election: After loss, BCCI forces a tie” Mumbai, Fri May 03 2013, 15:40 hrs.

Tony Irish — chief executive of South Africa players association and also on the board of Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (FICA) said on Thursday that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had forced a re-vote for a crucial post in the ICC's decision-making committee during a recent election.

The Indian board had last month picked former India leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan as their candidate for the players' representative on the ICC cricket committee. A report on South African website BDLive said however, that during the election conducted by email where the 10 Test playing nation's captains voted, a majority of the captains had picked the Australian incumbent Tim May over the Indian veteran cricketer. "The voting for the players' representative on the ICC cricket committee is done by the 10 Test captains," Irish told The Indian Express. "In the first instance, it went in favour of Tim May. But, suddenly we faced a situation where Tim May was said to be 'unacceptable' by some board and a re-voting was ordered. Some captains were pressured to change their decision and we all know that Tim is not liked by the Indian board. I don't want to go into the details. But us and some of the countries' boards wondered what was the reason for the change," Irish added.

The voting was part of a secret ballot, where Test captains personally pick their representative on the two member committee. BCCI were keen on removing May, who doesn't share the most cordial of relations with India, as BCCI does not recognise FICA of which May is a board member. Amongst other things, it is believed that an Indian member on the committee would mean the BCCI could keep the controversial DRS (Decision Review System) at bay. The ICC cricket committee debates for any changes done on-field and having Siva would have meant the Indian board would have their say in the committee. When contacted, BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale remained unavailable for comment. Sources in the ICC said that votes were submitted much before the deadline and it is learnt that the BCCI got to know of the voting pattern, though the entire procedure was supposed to be conducted under confidentiality. The Indian board is said to have attempted to persuade various boards to 'ask' their captains to change their votes.

BDLive claimed that "the Indian board was upset with the votes they got for their candidate as they numbered 9:1 in favour of retaining May. When the Indian board learnt of this, they began effecting a change of the game, by pressing upon other boards. The website further quoted that, "Soon after realising this, a top BCCI official called the Cricket South Africa (CSA) acting CEO enquiring into who Smith had voted for. However, their captain's vote was handled by the South African Cricketers Association and had nothing to do with the country's governing body CSA. Irish confirmed to The Indian Express that Graeme Smith backed May for the ICC cricket committee's post. He said that at present the vote was deadlocked at 5-5 and it was upto the ICC to break the tie now. "It's a deadlock so ICC has to deal with it now. But the only thing I can say is that it's a sad day for cricket. Players are not allowed to vote freely in cricketing matters," Irish stated. The ICC cricket committee is schedule to meet in Lords on May 28-29.

Seemingly all is not smooth with the affairs of ICC ~ on one hand BCCI is alleged to be flexing its financial muscle……but most conveniently forget that England, Australia, New Zealand were ruling the roost for too long… and one well knows, what muscle was flexed those days…….

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.               

- source ww.indianexpress.com; 7^th May 2013.

PS : there would one more on how elections are conducted democratically, wait for part 3…