Seven Days In January

On January 22, EWN Sport quoted the ICC's Chief Executive David Richardson's first on the record observations about the position paper.

These are just recommendations that they have put together, it’s by our working group of members of our financing and commercial affairs committee. They are representatives from England, Australia and India.” 

“They have put these proposals together and those proposals are still to be discussed in full by our finance committee as an example and the full ICC board when it meets at the end of January.”

“So at this stage it’s far too premature for the ICC to make any comment on the content of the proposals because as we speak, we’re still going through them, getting further clarifications, finding out exactly what is intended and then hopefully we will be able to have proper discussion about these at the board meeting at the end of the month.”

On January 28, Richardson said

"An enormous amount of effort has gone into developing a comprehensive set of proposals that include input from all Members.

"The Board has held some very constructive, inclusive, wide-ranging and far-reaching discussions and I am looking forward to bringing to fruition some of the principles that have been proposed and accepted in relation to the cricketing structures of the global game."

We know from other reporting (see here and here) that if there were "inclusive, wide-ranging and far-reaching discussions", many of the small seven boards were not aware of it. Taken together, if Richardson is to be believed, the 7 days January 22 to 28 saw the fastest, most rigorous, inclusive, wide-ranging consultative process in the history of bureaucracy.

Or, Richardson is lying. Or dissembling, if you find that term more acceptable in these dubious, disingenuous rhetorical times.

The dubiousness of the ICC's use of the term "unanimous" is clear. But these are comments made by members of individual boards. David Richardson is in a different category. He is an executive officer of the ICC. He represents the ICC, not one of its constituent Boards. He is not a political appointee, but has presumably been promoted into his job because of his training as a lawyer and his prior executive experience at the ICC.

It is sad that his role in this takeover is likely to attract very little attention. Of all the members of the ICC Board, he is the one most likely to have the greatest effect on the nuts and bolts workings of the ICC. On simple things like ensuring that all members get fair notice, ensuring proper disclosure of facts and interests.

Instead, his statements reveal that he is perfectly willing to conflate the proposals of a working group within a smaller, specialist committee of the board, with the "The Board". This is simply mediocre and, coincidentally, serves the interests of the three most powerful Boards perfectly.