Board Of Thorns

They say no match is won till the last ball is bowled. In Twenty20 cricket, it’s an axiomatic truth. This IPL has seen matches being decided by the super over. For a team that had the upper hand, then faltered at some point and lost the contest after being forced into the super over, it can be heartbreaking. Administrators of world cricket seem to have been enamoured by these last-gasp finishes, for no less thrilling are the dark practices of officials either yearning for the hotseat or holding on to coveted positions by manipulating governing laws.

On October 12, after months of speculation, the International Cricket Council—headquartered in Dubai, one of the venues of IPL 2020—sent out a brief three-paragraph media release confirming that the process for the election of its next chairperson is und­erway and is expected to be concluded by December. The release lacked clarity; the communication team refused to answer questions. The release came after the ICC on July 2 had said that its board would finalise within a “week” the process to accept nominations for the next independent chairman. The position has been vacant since Shashank Manohar resigned as ICC’s first independent chairman on July 1 after two terms of two years each. This inordinate delay to arrive at the still unc­lear ‘process’ only highlighted the faultlines among a handful who decide what is good for world cricket.

Manohar’s exit was not unexpected—his policies were seen as ‘anti-Indian’ and the Nagpur lawyer never really enj­oyed the support of the BCCI. Manohar took advantage of the almost three-year run that the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators had in running the Indian cricket board, but after Sourav Ganguly was elected BCCI president in October last year and Union home minister Amit Shah’s son Jay became the secretary, his time was up.

Among the names that surfaced to succeed Manohar at ICC were Colin Graves of England, Dave Cameron of the West Indies, Ehsan Mani of Pakistan, Greg Barclay of New Zealand and even Ganguly. After Cameron and Mani withdrew from the race, Graves emerged a clear favourite, but only just. The fact that he was from England, one of the Big Three of world cricket, made Graves a hot choice, but then a verbal powerplay ensued. Ganguly’s position was unclear because his extension of tenure as BCCI president is now in the Supreme Court.

In early September, Mani said the next chairman must come outside the ‘Big Three’ and added that the politics which India, England and Australia introduced in 2014 was “unhealthy” for the game. N. Srinivasan’s stint as ICC chairman in 2014-15 was controversial as he wanted India, England and Australia to get the biggest share of ICC’s revenue. Manohar, who succeeded him, rejected it outright; his financial model based on equality won tremendous popularity with less prosperous boards.

Mani’s statement was the first hint for Graves that the path to the ICC throne would not be smooth. Fissures in the ICC board were bec­oming clearer. For its demand for the maximum cut from the ICC coffers, there was an anti-BCCI wave and there was no consensus on a candidate from either England or India. Insiders saw Mani’s subtle hand in exploiting the circumstances. Although the cricket boards of India and Pakistan are never on the same page, Mani enjoyed a healthy relationship with Manohar. Deep down, there was a devious plan to keep India out no matter how powerful the BCCI was.

As outlined in the ICC constitution, to be eligible, potential candidates must be either a current or former ICC director. After nomination of potential candidates (which ends on October 18), a nominee will have to be proposed and seconded by current board directors to become a legitimate candidate. When Manohar became ICC’s first ind­ependent chairman in 2016, he was elected through a secret ballot. In 2018, he was unanimously given a second term by the ICC board, that has 12 dir­ectors from Test-playing nations (full members), three representing ass­ociate nations, an independent female director and, of course, the chairman.

To become chairman, a candidate needs a two-thirds majority. That means 12 votes out of 17 or 11 out of 16. Since Imran Khwaja is both interim chairman and a director, there are 16 votes. And therein lies the biggest stumbling block—the ICC board is divided between two-thirds majority and a simple majority (9 out of 16). It is learnt that the stronger cricket boards want a simple majority, but can’t have their way. It is for this reason that Graves doesn’t want to risk an election.

The concept of independent directors came into being to eradicate conflict of interest. It was felt that richer boards wanted to get richer at the exp­ense of the less fortunate ones. The eff­ort was laudable but the voting system created cracks. It gave precedence to personalities, not home boards. Interim chairman Khwaja is a case in point. After 14 years in charge, he was ousted from the Singapore Cricket Association in 2015. In 2016, with SCA’s backing, he stood for directorship at the ICC AGM in Scotland. He was elected. In 2018, Khwaja was re-e­lected as director from the associate nations’ quota. This time, Singapore did not approve him. He was proposed by Mozambique!

Critics say that Khwaja tweaked the director eligibility rules and his long-time accomplices Manohar and Mani backed him. ICC says all due diligence was followed and clarified: “Khwaja was re-elected as associate director in June 2018 in his capacity as a current director of the ICC and not as a representative of an associate member. He was subsequently re-e­lected chairman of the associate members which is an independent position….” ICC added: “The three ass­ociate member directors are elected to the board collectively by the associate members, unlike full member directors who are appointed by each full member.” Effectively, Khawaja turned his back on the country thr­o­ugh which he entered the ICC board.

This is absurd, say critics. ICC represents nations, not individuals. If this is the case ICC will be run by a Nigerian chairman one day. All you need is a proposer and a seconder and clever manipulation. The director eligibility rules are fundamentally weak and do not preserve ICC as an institution, they say. This topic was raised at the ICC associate members’ annual meeting in London in 2019 by Singa­pore, but Khwaja as chairman skilfully swept the issue under the carpet.

The past four months have shown the ICC in poor light. For now, all eyes will be on October 18, when candidates for the chairman’s post will be known, with a huge chance that a consensus candidate outside the Big Three will emerge. It will be a relief for the ICC but it would do well to introspect so as to live up to its image of an institution that only furthers the interest of world cricket, not of individuals intent on amassing power.