Bangladesh sided with India at the ICC meeting that sought to scrap the rotation policy despite the newest full-member nation has reasons to fall victim to any such decision.
Bangladesh Cricket Board president AHM Mustafa Kamal on Saturday admitted he voted in favour of scrapping the rotational presidency, though he said he did it on condition.
The India-backed idea of scrapping the rotation policy received overwhelming support from the other countries except Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Pakistan voted against the proposal and Sri Lanka remained absent, which gave the ruling body of world cricket a mandate to scrap the policy, though at the end of the meeting it withheld the decision and formed a committee to review the rule change.
If Bangladesh had voted against it, the proposal would have been rejected outright as the ICC needed at least eight votes from its full members for a constitutional amendment.
Any such constitutional amendment would impact Pakistan and Bangladesh as the South Asian countries were supposed to nominate the candidate who would succeed New Zealander Alan Isaac, now a vice-president, as the ICC chief in 2014.
Pakistan has already had their chance with Ehsan Mani heading the ICC from 2003-06, meaning Bangladesh has the strongest claim this time.
Naturally it was expected that Bangladesh would take a strong position against it, but surprisingly it voted in favour of the India-backed proposal, which raised quite a few eyebrows.
‘Yes, I signed the circular resolution in favour of scrapping the rotational policy,’ Kamal told a crowded press conference on Saturday at Mirpur.
‘I did it to buy time as I was confident that it won’t be scrapped. I knew for sure that three countries – South Africa, Sri Lanka and Pakistan – won’t accept it,’ said Kamal.
Kamal was confident Bangladesh will get their chance to nominate a vice-president in 2012 once the term of New Zealander Alan Isaac ended and he himself will be nominated by the Bangladesh Cricket Board.
Isaac will head the ICC until June 2012 and the vice-president will take over afterwards. If everything goes according to plan Kamal will be the first Bangladeshi to head ICC.
He needs to come out as the elected president of the BCB first as the ICC recently banned all kinds of government meddling in its member boards.
Recently a BCB director Shafiul Arefin accused Kamal of not agreeing to the draft amendment to its constitution which would allow the BCB to hold an election for the post of president.
Kamal defended his position and said he opposed the idea as he was new in cricket administration.
‘I had just come to the board when the issue was raised and I opposed it because I was very new at the board,’ said Kamal.
‘Now there has to be an elected president and I welcome the decision and will work to add the new amendment to the constitution,’ said Kamal.
-With New Age input
