The 4-day International Cricket Council Annual General Meeting concluded in Colombo on the 22nd of July with a few matters resolved. As per the ICC, the meeting was themed around the objective to capitalize on the Olympics 2024 which will begin in Paris this week. Besides this, many other matters were discussed in the meeting, which was attended by representatives from all 108 ICC members.
The most pressing matter on the meeting agenda was the discussion about the budgetary overruns during the America leg of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024. The board members had earlier raised eyebrows regarding organizing the New York part of the tournament. The global body has decided to review the conduct of the entire event, under teh supervision of a panel consisting of three board directors including Roger Twose, Lawson Naidoo, and Imran Khwaja. The directors are instructed to report back to the ICC towards the end of the current year.
In addition to this decision, the governing body has also decided to put USA Cricket and Cricket Chile on formal notice. This decision comes after ICC warned the American Cricket Board for its non-compliance with Associate Membership Criteria. The ICC revealed the decision in the media release as quoted below,
“USA Cricket and Cricket Chile have been formally put on notice and have 12 months to rectify their current non-compliance with the ICC Membership Criteria. Neither Member is considered to have in place a fit-for-purpose detailed governance and administrative structure and systems.”
The release also mentioned that the governing body can suspend any of the said boards anytime, should the non-compliance continue.
“The ICC Americas office will work with Cricket Chile to support them in remedying their non-compliance. The Board agreed that a Normalisation Committee comprising of Board and Management representatives will be set up to oversee and monitor USA Cricket’s compliance roadmap and the ICC Board will reserve its right to suspend or expel the Member for continued non-compliance.”
While the discussions regarding the Champions Trophy hosting conflict did not take place, the meeting ended with approval of the budget for the mega-event which was prepared by PCB’s chief finance officer, Javed Murtaza, and ICC’s chief finance officer, Ankur Khanna. When asked as to why the meeting did not hold talks about the aforementioned issue, a top Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) official said,
“It isn’t a bilateral where two boards will hold discussions. No dialogue happened between us and PCB on the Champions Trophy. Since it wasn’t on any of the agendas, it wasn’t discussed during the AGM too. It is still time away and ICC will handle it,”
The Chief Executives’ Committee allocated eight regional qualifying spots for the 2026 edition of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. The eight spots will be filled by two qualifying teams from Africa and Europe, one from the Americas, and a combined three from Asia and East Asian and Pacific regional final. As for the women’s T20 World Cup, the number of teams will increase from 12 to 16 for the 2030 T20 World Cup.
