Cricket’s apex body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), on Wednesday has confirmed that its incumbent chairman Shashank Manohar will not be in contention for the third term in office, a day before the ICC Board meeting.
An official release by the ICC also confirmed that the board has not taken a call on the process of the elections and the same will be discussed on Thursday. Notably, the ICC usually adopts to a secret ballot system for these elections but may not be able to adapt the same during the time of the coronavirus pandemic.
Manohar was elected as the ICC chairman in 2016 and went on to claim a second term in 2018. Colin Graves, who has already announced that his tenure as chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) will end on 3 August, is likely to replace Manohar.
Meanwhile, current BCCI boss Sourav Ganguly is also expected to be in contention for the ICC chairman’s role. He has already received support publically from Cricket South Africa’s director of cricket Graeme Smith.
“Leadership in our sport is going to be key, and having someone at a level who understands the modern game, understands the challenges that are going to be faced, emphasises more the people who get put into key positions. I think the president of the ICC becomes a key position. It would be great to see a cricket man like Sourav Ganguly get into the role of president of the ICC,” Smith had said earlier.
Former England skipper David Gower had also backed Ganguly as an administrator to lead ICC but also stated that running the BCCI is the more important job.