Jay Shah elected ICC chief unopposed, emphasises on gobalisation of cricket | – Times of India

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: Indian cricket board’s incumbent secretary Jay Shah on Tuesday became the youngest independent chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC). Shah, 35, was elected unopposed after current chairman Greg Barclay refused to seek a third term.
He is the fifth Indian – after Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar, N Srinivasan and Shashank Manohar – to be elected to this high-profile position.“I am humbled by the nomination as the ICC chair,” Shah said. He will have to quit as BCCI secretary before taking up the ICC job.
Shah, who also serves as president of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), will assume office at the ICC headquarters in Dubai on December 1. An ICC chairman is eligible for three terms of two years each, and Barclay, a New Zealand-based attorney, has completed four years.

ICC had announced that elections for the chairman’s post would only occur if multiple candidates were nominated. However, with Jay Shah being the sole nominee, the election process was straightforward.
Shah’s popularity among the ICC’s more than 100 member nations was evident at the ICC’s annual conference in Colombo in July.
“Shah’s election marks a new chapter for the ICC as it seeks to expand the game’s reach and continue its evolution on the global stage,” the council stated in its release.
BCCI will now have to look for Shah’s replacement since the board’s constitution doesn’t permit a person to hold two posts. He is into his second term as BCCI secretary after being first elected in October 2019. According to the BCCI Constitution, Shah was supposed to go into a mandatory cooling-off period in the BCCI next year.

Shah, who is currently heading the ICC’s Finance and Commercial Affairs Committee (F&CAC), said globalisation of the game, keeping the inclusion of cricket in LA Olympics 2028 in mind, would be his priority.
“I am committed to working closely with the ICC team and our member nations to further globalise cricket. The inclusion of our sport in the Olympics at LA 2028 represents a significant inflection point for the growth of cricket, and I am confident that it will drive the sport forward in unprecedented ways,” he said.
Shah also pointed to the need to find a way to sustain all formats of the game.
“We stand at a critical juncture where it is increasingly important to balance the coexistence of multiple formats, promote the adoption of advanced technologies, and introduce our marquee events to new global markets. Our goal is to make cricket more inclusive and popular than ever before,” he claimed.

As far as the BCCI is concerned, a candidate to replace Shah can be finalised by November after thorough discussion. From the current set of office-bearers, treasurer Ashish Shelar is seen as a strong candidate ahead of joint secretary Devajit Saikia.
It will be interesting to see if Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Arun Dhumal, who served as BCCI treasurer in the previous term, is considered for the role. It will be a tricky challenge with the mega IPL auction looming. There is speculation over Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) president Rohan Jaitley being a potential candidate.
It remains to be seen if the board decides to elect someone new for the post or elevates one of its existing office-bearers.
“These calls are taken when all board members meet with other important stakeholders in Indian cricket. Things change at the last moment in BCCI. Nothing can be said till then,” a senior BCCI functionary told TOI.

Son of India’s home minister Amit Shah, Jay has been in cricket administration since 2009 when he was part of a district body in Gujarat before assuming the role of joint secretary in Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) in 2013. He first assumed BCCI office, along with Sourav Ganguly as president, at a time when the board came through rocky waters after being run by the Supreme Court’s appointed Committee of Administrators for nearly three years.
His experience of being an administrator at GCA, where he oversaw the making of the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, came in handy when the board had to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic up front in his tenure as BCCI secretary.
Hosting a successful IPL in UAE in 2020 and the ICC T20 World Cup in the same country in 2021 came as a major shot in his arm. Another highlight of his BCCI tenure was the 2022 IPL media rights auction, which saw astronomical bids reflecting the growing global appeal of Indian cricket. Shah spearheaded the negotiations, resulting in a recordbreaking deal worth Rs 48,390 crores for a five-year period.

In the last year, Shah has been instrumental in the growth of women’s cricket in India as BCCI brought in pay parity for its international cricketers besides raising the match fees of both men and women domestic cricketers. He played a key role in the launch of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) in 2022.
Shah was also instrumental in building the new National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore on a large piece of land acquired by the BCCI in 2008. Shah said recently that a lot of attention needs to be given to cricket for the disabled.
As chair of ICC, his first challenge is to get to the root of the mismanaged T20 World Cup in USA and West Indies a couple of months ago. He has been vigilant about the excessive budget used for the USA leg and raised the red flag as ICC’s F&CAC head.