“BCCI is the only recognised body by the ICC to run official cricket in India. We have not got any application from the ICL (for recognition) yet, but we have already set a five-step process to decide on such issues,” said ICC CEO Malcolm Speed.
Describing the first four stages of the process, Speed finally said, “in the last stage we will be asking the applicants whether the member board of the country has approved it. If the answer is no we would not give it our recognition,” Speed said at the news conference to announce the first list of ICC’s 2007 annual awardees.
Speed said the first four steps in the process of approving a tournament by a private body were: “Whether it’s run for the development of the game or for charitable purpose; who were all playing in it and whether the players were all contracted to their parent boards; when and where they are to be played and whether anti-corruption measures were put in place to run the event.
After all these steps only “we will find out whether it has the approval of the member board,” he emphasised.
He cited the example of a tournament planned last year in the USA which was shot down by the ICC for not fulfilling the criteria he had mentioned.
Speed also referred to what one of ICL’s talent scouts, former Australian batsman Dean Jones, thought about the matches the ICL planned to organise.
“From what I gather they are seeking to run what I can call within quotes unofficial cricket. Dean Jones was criticised in Australia for joining the ICL and his reply was that it was only glorified exhibition matches,” Speed said.
“I have come to understand through media reports and after talking to people in India, that what the ICL has planned is two to three weeks of Twenty20 cricket with six teams having three or four retired or retiring international cricketers and domestic cricketers,” the ICC CEO said.
“We keep getting requests from private organisations for allowing them to organise events. ICC traditionally allows its members to run cricket. ICC does not interfere if a member board disciplines or does not discipline its players.
“At this stage all I can say is we have not been approached (by the ICL),” he concluded on the issue.
Speed, however, said he would personally be extremely disappointed if Pakistan’s middle-order mainstay Mohd Yousuf, who has joined the ICL, is not seen in action in the forthcoming India-Pakistan series in this country.