May 25, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 08, 1428

CAPE TOWN, May 24: Percy Sonn, the president of the ICC, remains critically ill in an intensive care unit in Cape Town, his personal assistant told reporters.

According to a report in Thursday’s Times, doctors said there was little hope that he would survive.

“His condition is still unchanged. He is stable and his family is at his bedside. There is no change since yesterday,” George Hector said on Tuesday.

He said that Sonn had suffered complications after being admitted to the Durbanville clinic in Cape Town on Monday to undergo a minor colon operation.

The appointment, Hector added, had been scheduled several months prior to the recent World Cup in the Caribbean.

Sonn, 57, the former president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCB), succeeded Ehsan Mani at the helm of the ICC in June 2006, and immediately announced his intentions to be a ‘hands-off’ president.

This declaration was borne out by his low profile during the World Cup; after delivering his speech at the opening ceremony in Jamaica, he returned to South Africa for several weeks of the 47-day tournament, although that decision may have been attributable to his ill-health.

—Agencies