Lorgat: Politics will be kept out of cricket

Dubai: Haroon Lorgat, the new International Cricket Council (ICC) chief executive remarked that his organisation will keep politics out of the sport.

"We cannot as a sports governing body be mixing the issues of politics with sport," remarked Lorgat who took over from the acting chief executive David Richardson.

"I was very encouraged by the robustness of the debate around the executive board table but at the end of the day the issues of politics and sport should be kept separate."

Lorgat praised Zimbabwe's decision to withdraw from next June's Twenty20 tournament.

"The Zimbabwe Cricket Board president Peter Chingoka helped broker the solution. It would have been extremely difficult if Chingoka was not in favour of the recommendation," he said.

"I'm now confident that with the goodwill that has come through in the process of our deliberations, everybody will look at the big picture."

Lorgat also said that with the withdrawal of Zimbabwe an alternate participant will have to be found out.

"If I am allowed to speculate then it could be some team which has come through the process from among our associate member's league table. However, it is for the cricket operations committee to look into the matter," said Lorgat.