Lahore, Pakistan: Najam Sethi has withdrawn his nomination for ICC president and requested the Pakistan Cricket Board to nominate a former Test cricketer in his place.

The ICC was to consider Sethi’s appointment later this month at a board meeting in Barbados. Mustafa Kamal of Bangladesh resigned in April as ICC president after criticising umpires for his country’s loss against India in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.

The ICC has encouraged cricket boards to appoint a former Test cricketer for the ceremonial post of president and Sethi wrote in his letter to the ICC “this rule should be implemented straightaway so that one of Pakistan’s great, iconic cricketers should be honoured”.

Sethi is a renowned journalist and a former PCB chairman and former caretaker chief minister of Punjab province.