Suorce: sportbusiness.com
The ICC upheld a constitutional amendment to provide for the principle of free elections and the independence of member boards at its annual conference, according to Reuters. The decision means administrative reforms will be required in at least three Test-playing nations, with Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at the top of the list.
In Pakistan, the cricket board chief is appointed by the country's president while in Bangladesh the government is responsible for naming the head of the governing body. Sri Lanka Cricket has an interim body that requires issues such as team selection to be approved by the Sports Ministry.
“It was agreed that all member boards must implement the provisions before annual conference in June 2012 and a further 12 months (to June 2013) would be allowed before any sanctions would be considered,” read a statement from the ICC. “It was a well-established principle of modern sporting governance that national federations should be autonomous and free from interference from government in the administration of their affairs.”
Non-Test playing nations also expressed disappointment following the ICC’s decision to maintain the 12-team format for the Twenty20 World Cups in 2012 and 2014 in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, respectively. The global body’s initial plan was to restrict the Cricket World Cup to the 10 Test-playing nations while the Twenty20 event would be expanded to 16 teams.
However, following a backlash from associate members, which were due to miss out on the smaller Cricket World Cup, the ICC opted to maintain the status quo of 14 teams for the showpiece tournament, although this in turn has led to the Twenty20 tournament being restricted to 12 teams.