LAHORE, May 9: The Asia region will get 50 per cent of the International Cricket Council (ICC) development fund until 2007, the ICC president Ehsan Mani announced on Sunday during the Asian Cricket Council's development seminar.
He said that the world body had allocated over $100 million for the development of cricket out of which $50 million would be spent in Asia. Mr Mani remarked that the ICC understood that it required resources to support development initiatives around the world and under ACC's guidance the game continued to flourish in Asia.
"The recent series between Pakistan and India demonstrated the game's strength in the subcontinent," he said. The ICC president said that the newest full member from Asia, Bangladesh, had faced a challenging time since its entry into Test cricket and the world body had been working closely with them and the ACC to assist.
From Asia, he noted that the associate member countries like Malaysia, Nepal and United Arab Emirates were making progress. Mr Mani said that the ICC launched its development programme in 1997 and since then number of members had increased to 42. Besides, the programme he added, was targeting improvement in the playing standards of its associate and affiliate members.
The programme, he said, also helped ICC to increase the participation in the next World Cup to 16 countries. The World Cup 2003 gave ICC an opportunity to assess the success of the development programme as Canada, Holland, Kenya and Namibia showed improved performances.
Furthermore, the introduction of ICC Inter-continental Cup from this year provides 12 associate countries the exposure to international three-day cricket for the first time. From Asia, three countries namely Malaysia, Nepal and UAE would take part.
Mr Mani revealed that China would table applications for membership of the ACC and the ICC later this year. Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, urged all the cricket boards toad opt good governance and cited the system of New Zealand Cricket (NZC) for example.
Mr Speed said that good governance creates good cricket teams and the effective governance is a very important feature of an outstanding sports organization.
He said that boards must be smaller in staff strength, its directors should be specialist with some former players, having clear definition of roles between governance and management and with clearly defined tenure, shorter rather than long and focussing on strategy.
Mr Speed informed the gathering that the NZC had seven person board including the chief executive and a woman. The board was selected by an independent panel for three years. Two members had to retire each year. The NZC chairman was elected from the board, he said.
"An influential and effective chairman working closely with a competentand effective chief executive can make a huge difference to a sporting organization. This is arguably the most important partnership in a sports organization," Mr Speed concluded.
Shaharyar M. Khan, the Pakistan Cricket Board chairman, delivered a lecture on "Romance of Pakistan Cricket and performance of Pakistan team against India". Mr Khan said that all world class players produced by Pakistan were romance of the country's cricket and gave the examples of Hanif Mohammad, Imtiaz Ahmed, Fazal Mahmood, Imran Khan, Majid Khan, Javed Miandad and Sarfraz Nawaz, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis.
He said that the series between Pakistan and India was very beneficial for the game. Former Australian captain Greg Chappell delivered a lecture on "Secret of the best batsmen and how to train them" and cited examples of legends like Don Bradman, Sunil Gavaskar, Gary Sobers, Sachin Tendulkar, Vivian Richards.
Clive Lloyd, the former West Indies captain, spoke about World Cup 2007, which is being hosted by West Indies, and urged the ICC to emphasize on youngsters. Lloyd said that for the first time World Cup would be staged in at least 10 independent countries spread across the Turquoise waters of the Caribbean sea.
He urged the ICC to include a significant programme of basic education for young aspiring cricketers in their formative years. "It is the foundation of a good education that will serve the youth well as cricketers and perhaps more importantly, in life after cricket. It will empower them as citizens of the world and true ambassadors of the game."
Barry Richards, the great South African batsman of yesteryear, spoke on "Is too much professionalism harming the game". "Different countries have different definitions of professionalism and there will be a scale of affordability, but all players and administrators should still be accountable for the image, the credibility and the future of the game," he said.
ICC High Performance manager Bob Woolmer elaborated six points for the coach to produce good product.
