ICC Board recommends split presidency role

Dubai: The ICC Board has recommended to split the role of president with a chairman from 2014, a decision which could affect the nomination of Bangladesh`s Mustafa Kamal as ICC vice-president from 2012-14.

The recommendation creates a new system whereby the Presidency would be an Ambassadorial role appointed on a one-year rotational basis, while a chairman would lead the Board. The recommendation was made at the conclusion of two-day meeting of the ICC Executive Board on Wednesday. India`s Sharad Pawar is the current ICC President with New Zealand`s Allan Isac, who is vice-president, to replace him. "Following Board discussions since October 2011 and consistent with recommendations in the Woolf Report, the Board passed a unanimous resolution recommending to the ICC Council an amendment to the ICC Articles of Association so that from 2014 the current Presidency role is split," an ICC release said. The issue will be taken up at the next ICC Board meeting in April before being submitted for approval by the ICC Annual Conference in June. Furthermore, Egon Zehnder, the International executive recruitment firm, have been appointed to conduct the search for the ICC chief executive who will replace Haroon Lorgat when he vacates the position at the end of the Annual Conference in June 2012. The ICC Board also approved a total of USD 3.8 million in prize money to be shared among the top four Test sides on 1 April 2013, 2014 and 2015. "This worthy increase in prize money for the top four teams in the Reliance ICC Test Rankings can only be right. We are delighted at the growing interest and quality of Test match cricket and we must continue to promote the pinnacle form of the game before and beyond the Test Championship in 2017,"ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat said. Among other decisions, the ICC Executive Board had established a Security Task Force to review the existing safety and security arrangements for international cricket and to make such recommendations to the ICC Board as it considered appropriate to help create a safe and secure environment for international cricket. For an independent governance review as one of the key initiatives to `Build a Bigger, Better Global Game`, the ICC Board received from Lord Woolf of Barnes and PricewaterhouseCoopers a 60-page report containing 65 recommendations and a transitional plan. The Board agreed to study the report in detail together with ICC Members and other stakeholders before fully considering the report and its recommendations at the next Board meeting in April 2012. PTI