April 19, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1429

NEW DELHI, April 18: A global cricketers’ union is conducting its second poll in two years in order to mount pressure on the International Cricket Council to change its “Indian-dominated” set-up and reduce the international cricket schedule.

FICA chief executive Tim May said on Friday that after 56 percent of the players polled last year said that they had lost confidence in the ICC’s ability to govern the game, the group is currently conducting another poll among the cricketers and the results would be discussed at its two-day board meeting in Austin, Texas.

“FICA are presently conducting a fresh poll among its members on a raft of issues, one of which is the governance of our game. The results of that poll will not be known until early May and will not be presented to our board until May 26,” May said.

“The results of that survey will be discussed at our annual general meeting and any position taken by FICA in this regard will not be determined until then,” said May, a former Australia off-spinner who played 24 Tests and 47 One-day Internationals in 1980s-1990s.

India and Pakistan will, however, not be represented at the Texas meeting as their players’ associations are not recognised by their cricket boards.

Last year, immediately after the World Cup in the West Indies, FICA had asked the ICC to launch an independent review into its governance structure, following a similar player survey.

“There has been a growing amount of dissatisfaction amongst a wide variety of cricket stakeholders over the past 24 months, regarding the governance of our game.” —Agencies