March 18, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1429

DUBAI, March 17: South Africa’s Imtiaz Patel will be the next chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC), it was announced on Monday.

He will succeed Australia’s Malcolm Speed, who will step down in July after seven years in office.

“There was an absolute consensus on his choice,” said David Morgan, the ICC president elect. “He was among the six candidates shortlisted for the job by the ICC executive board from a list of 15 chosen by our consultants.

“We still have to negotiate the terms and conditions of the contract with Mr Imtiaz. The initial contract will be for a term of three years,” Morgan said.

Imtiaz Patel is the chief executive of Supersport, the South African broadcast network.

The ICC executive board, which met in Dubai on Monday, also named I.S. Bindra, the former president of the Indian board, as principal advisor, a new role.

Patel and Bindra were shortlisted by a four-man ICC sub-committee comprising the ICC president, Ray Mali, Morgan, the Cricket Australia chairman Creagh O’Connor, and the president of the BCCI, Sharad Pawar.

Patel, a South African of Indian origin, is seen as a compromise candidate after concern among other ICC member nations over an Indian stranglehold on world cricket affairs had Bindra become the chief executive.

A teacher before becoming development director at the United Cricket Board of SA – the forerunner of the current national body – in 1991, he joined SuperSport in 1999 and rose through the ranks to be its chief executive.

It is learnt that the Bindra-Patel arrangement was worked out over the last “two or three days” between the Indian board and other ICC members.

The BCCI had initially pushed hard for Bindra and the prospect of an age bar ruling out its candidate saw its president, Sharad Pawar, writing a letter to the ICC pointing out flaws in the argument.

The arrangement is believed to suit all key members as it will dilute India’s stranglehold over the ICC with Pawar in line to take over the top job from Morgan in two years. At the same time, the BCCI will have a key man in the top levels of the ICC keeping a tab on, and influencing, major decisions.

Bindra himself was reportedly not to keen to relocate to, and work in, Dubai on a full-time basis, especially since he is on the governing council of the Indian Premier League (IPL). He recently said that he would also have to take into account his daughter’s education, and his position as head of the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), the local association for the Mohali franchise.

An ICC official said Bindra will be based in India and will be available to it whenever necessary to provide guidance.

The BCCI secretary, Niranjan Shah, said Bindra’s appointment was “an honour for a major cricket nation like India”.

“Bindra is a man with great experience in cricket administration and his contribution at the highest level will be valuable,” Shah said.—Agencies