During its two day meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the ICC Executive Board made the following decisions in relation to several key issues.

PLAYER RELATED ISSUES

PLAYER TERMS FOR ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP 2003

The ICC established a process through which it will resolve the concerns over the Player Terms for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003.

The key element of the process is the establishment of a Cricket World Cup Contracts Committee.

This Committee will be responsible for consulting with all Boards, with the players either through their individual Boards or directly, and with the ICC's commercial partner, Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) to clearly identify and address the issues surrounding the Player Terms before the end of the year.

This Committee will comprise:

• ICC President, Malcolm Gray
• ICC Vice President, Eshan Mani
• ICC Chief Executive, Malcolm Speed
• Australian Cricket Board Chairman, Bob Merriman
• Board of Control of Cricket in India President, Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya and
• An independent member with appropriate legal or commercial experience who is yet to be appointed

ICC President, Malcolm Gray, said that the Executive Board recognized the importance of addressing this issue as quickly as possible.

"The lead-in to the ICC Champions Trophy highlighted that there are issues that need to be resolved in relation to the Player Terms. The Board has now put in place a process to deal with these issues and this will be done over the coming weeks," said Mr Gray.

PLAYER REPRESENTATION

Cricket Committee Playing

The Board considered the issue of player representation on ICC Committees and adopted the recommendation to restructure the Cricket Committee – Playing (CC-P) to allow for the direct election from the players of five members of the ten Full Member representatives on this Committee.

CC-P is responsible for issues related to the playing of the game including Playing Conditions, Code of Conduct and the Laws of the Game.

Former Indian Captain, Sunil Gavaskar, will continue as chairman of CC-P while he will now have five members drawn from Boards and five members elected by the captains of the Test playing teams.

As is this case with the ICC Security Officers, the 10 Test playing nations have been paired and one players' representative and one Board representative will come from each pairing. These representatives cannot be from the same country.

Because of the specific responsibilities of this Committee, the Board identified that to serve on this Committee a member must have international playing experience.

ICC Chief Executive, Malcolm Speed, said that the restructure of the CC-P provided a more direct voice to the players.

"The restructure of Cricket Committee – Playing to include the direct input of players, through representatives elected by the players, will improve the quality of the decisions made by the ICC," said Mr Speed.

"Other than ensuring that the people dealing with playing issues have played that game internationally there is no restriction on who can be nominated by the Boards and the players.

Cricket Committee – Management

A proposal to expand the Cricket Committee – Management (CC-M) to allow for a representative nominated directly by the players to sit on this Committee was not adopted by the Board.

CC-M is the committee made up of the Chief Executives from all Test Playing nations and deals with the commercial and management issues surrounding the game.

Five Boards were strong in their belief that these issues are matters of sovereign rights for the Boards and were therefore most appropriately addressed through the relationship between the respective Board and their players.

Broadened Commitment to Players in relations to future ICC Events

The Board also broadened its commitment to deal with the players regarding rights for ICC events that are outside the ICC's current agreements.

At its meeting on 31 August 2002 in Dubai, the Board had committed to consult with players on these issues and after discussing the matter in more detail today it has agreed to broaden this commitment to consultation and negotiation.

ZIMBABWE

The ICC will send a inspection delegation to Zimbabwe in late November or early December to carry out a final safety and security inspection prior to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003.

The delegation will be made up of representatives the following:

• the ICC Chief Executive
• a representative of each country due to play in Zimbabwe during the World Cup
• a representative of the players
• a representative of the ICC's commercial partner, Global Cricket Corporation and
• a representative of the insurance industry.

ICC President, Malcolm Gray, said that the inspection would play an important role.

"There are a number of matches programmed in Zimbabwe and the ICC will be taking all possible steps to fulfill this obligation," said Mr Gray.

"Part of ensuring this is to deal with any real or perceived concerns that any country may have about safety and security issues in Zimbabwe. This visit will provide the ICC and its key stakeholders with the opportunity to make a first hand assessment of the situation in Zimbabwe."

A report from the delegation is due to the ICC within two weeks of the visit.

CRICKETING ISSUES

VOLUME OF CRICKET

The Board accepted a number of guidelines that had come out of the Captains Meeting in July this year and which had been recommended by Cricket Committee - Management regarding the volume of cricket.

These guidelines are:

• A limit of 15 Tests and 30 One Day Internationals per calendar year per country averaged out over a period of four years;
• A minimum break of six weeks per calendar year;
• Whenever possible between overseas tours, there will be a break of 10 days.
• Back-to-back ODI's should be discouraged were possible and there should be at least two days break between matches.

RESERVE DAYS – WORLD CUP

The Board confirmed that there would be no reserve days for the first round of the ICC World Cup 2003.

For further information
Brendan McClements
General Manager – Corporate Affairs
+44 7786 194 974

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