Former Bangladesh Cricket Board president Saber Hossain Chowdhury wrote to International Cricket Council president and CEO Alan Isaac on Sunday in support of former ICC president Ehsan Mani’s letter of protest against the controversial plan to overhaul the ICC.
Mani’s letter, dated January 26, is undersigned by former ICC president Malcolm Gray, former ICC CEO Malcolm Speed, former West Indies captain and former ICC Cricket Committee chairman Clive Lloyd, and past Pakistan Cricket Board presidents Shahryar Khan and Lt. Gen. (retd.) Tauqir Zia.
The letter addresses the ‘custodians of world cricket’ and requests ‘that the Paper by the ICC F&CA [Finance & Commercial Affairs] Committee should be withdrawn’.
It also asks ‘that the ICC directors and management, its members and other stakeholders are, as a matter of urgency, invited to review and comment on the Governance Report by Lord Woolf and PWC, published in 2012, with a view to implementing its recommendations and improving ICC’s governance structure, in keeping with contemporary best practice.’
The letter came attached with Mani’s 13-page analysis of the F&CA Committee’s position paper, which was spearheaded by the ICC’s ‘Big Three’ boards: The Board of Control for Cricket in India, Cricket Australia, and the England & Wales Cricket Board.
In an e-mail to Isaac on Sunday, Saber wrote: ‘I write to you as a past President of Bangladesh Cricket Board and former ICC Director and refer to the letter of 26th January 2014 [signed by Mr. Ehsan Mani, Mr. Malcolm Gray, Mr. Malcolm Speed, Sir Clive Lloyd, Mr. Shahryar Khan
and Lt. Gen. (retd.) Tauqir Zia] addressed to you and all ICC Directors. I support this letter and endorse the Note including the Appendix, attached to it.’
Saber had also earlier expressed his opposition to the proposal – which would likely see Bangladesh miss out on Test cricket for years as part of a plan to introduce a tiered system with promotion and relegation in the five-day game – in a letter to BCB president Nazmul Hasan on Friday after it was reported that the board of directors had voted to approve the ICC draft proposal. The BCB later denied that such a resolution had been passed.
In that letter, Saber wrote that he was ‘aghast and deeply disappointed at the apparent decision of BCB Board of Directors to endorse a plan/proposal of three Full Members of ICC’ and called the decision ‘tantamount to signing the death warrant of Bangladesh cricket’.
-With New Age input
