Ex-West Indies board chief Cameron joins the race for ICC top post
Rallies for ‘equitable share’ of profit for countries outside Big Three
Dubai: The race for the chairman’s role in the International Cricket Council (ICC) took an unexpected twist as Dave Cameron, former supremo of Cricket West Indies (CWI) became the first person to set an agenda about the manner the sport is ought to be run in the future. Cameron’s name has been recommended to current chairman Shashank Manohar by the United States Hall of Fame.
“I believe we need to find a sustainable financial model where teams can earn through merit,” Cameron, who served as Cricket West Indies president from 2013 to 2019, said in an interview to Jamaica Gleaner.
“The big three – India, Australia and England – have all the events, the audience and the biggest economy, but the smaller nations have to always be coming back to the ICC for financial support, so what we want to happen is not equal share of revenues, but equitable share,” said Cameron.
Cameron, who was not the most popular of administrators during his tenure and had a public spat with current Cricket West Indies chief Ricky Skerritt, will need two nominations from the Board of Directors to be in the running for the elections to be held in end-July. England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Colin Graves is currently the frontrunner for the top post, provided Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly does not throw his hat in the ring in the last minute.
Cameron said if he gets to become the ICC chairman, he would like to take the sport to the USA. “The overall cricket structure needs change and needs to be looked at from different lenses. There is tremendous opportunity in the Americas, which have huge economies that are untapped, and we need to look at the cricket world from a different set of eyes,” said Cameron.
“We are still trying to fit Test cricket, T20 (Twenty20), ODIs (One-Day Internationals) and world events into the same 12 months with more teams, and I think there is a way to look at that to create more money with fewer events and to allow more players to participate in the global game.”
The election for the next chairman’s post has become a contentious one and the ICC ad convened a Board meeting to specifically discuss the issue last Thursday. Sources in the ICC say that an announcement is likely to be made this week as Manohar’s term ends on Tuesday (June 30).