ICC to Hold Election for CEC Position Next Week

The International Cricket Council (ICC) will hold the election for one Chief Executives Committee (CEC) position next week. Three candidates, Dr Vignaesh Shankaran of Germany, Sumod Damodar from Botswana, and Richard Done of Papua New Guinea are in the fray for the position vacated by UAE’s Mubasir Usmani, who has been elected to the ICC Board as Associate Nation Director in July.

The ICC has said that the election will be held between September 12 and 18 and the elected candidate will complete the current term of two years that started in 2023 and will end in July 2025. The CEC has three representatives from Associate nations. Raspal Bajwa, former president of Cricket Canada, and Umair Butt, the head of Denmark Cricket, are the other two sitting members in the CEC from the Associate Members.

The big issue among the Associate nations is the recent rule change by the ICC to the qualification pathway, making it difficult for the East Asia Pacific teams to quality for the World Cups. PNG made it to the recent Twenty20 World Cup but that will change as they have to compete against higher-ranked nations from Asia. East Asia Pacific has one berth and the Asia region has two and the two regions will compete jointly for three berths in the pathway tournament.

Done previously told ABC Radio that he is disappointed with the ICC decision to merge the two regions. “The EAP region as a whole were pretty disappointed. It sort of looks at us as a region and says, ‘well, you know, you don’t deserve a spot’. Even though we are ranked 20 currently and we’re 19 going into that event and there are 20 teams in the World Cup. So, you know, on rankings alone, we probably deserve a place. Their argument is that the region is a lot weaker and it should be challenging that stronger region to earn a spot.”

When contacted, Done said he wants to make difference for all the regions. “My interest is not for that specific reason. I have worked hard for Associate cricket for over 20 years. The drive to be on CEC is to continue to make a difference by working with all regions and members, to ensure to range of Associate views are understood at CEC, and help to grow the future of our Associate members for the betterment of cricket globally.

“More specifically, I want to see more certainty and consistency in the funding model and competition structures so members can plan better and further ahead,” Done, the CEO of PNG, who previously worked as High Performance manager at the ICC for over 15 years, told Cricbuzz.

The election will be held over next week and the outcome is expected to be announced immediately after that.

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