Draft will need 'extraordinary majority' to be passed - ICC vice-president

Mustafa Kamal, the ICC vice-president, has said an "extraordinary majority" will be required to approve ICC Finance & Commercial Affairs working group's increasingly controversial draft proposal. He does not believe, at this stage, that it would be right to bring such changes to the world of cricket.

Kamal was apparently not present at the meeting in which the proposal was first discussed during the January 9 meeting. He said that it would take a long time for such a revamp to take place. He doesn't think it would happen at such short notice, though there are reasons to believe that it will be the main topic of discussion at the January 29 ICC meeting.

"One must also remember that there are clauses that one will have to follow for making amendment to the constitution," Kamal told ESPNcricinfo. "They will need an extraordinary majority to make the amendments. There are so many discussions that will have to take place before such things happen. It is a long path.

"Anything that will affect the world of cricket should not be done," he said. "Cricket progressed a lot in the last decade, in terms of popularity, revenue and administration. I think it won't be right to bring changes."

His veiled stance against the draft proposal is a fair reflection of opinions in his home country, Bangladesh, and indicative of how rest of the ICC feels about it. Kamal said that he has discussed the matter with other board members, who have expressed similar surprise at what has been put in front of them.

"I have talked to members of different boards from around the globe and they are surprised too," he said. "No one had an idea of this proposal.

"I don't even regard this as a proposal at this stage, until it comes to me as a proposal in official form. I have no further comments to make."

Dave Richardson, the ICC chief executive, had said that the ICC was still considering the submission. "These are just recommendations that they have put together, it's by our working group of members of our financing and commercial affairs committee. They are representatives from England, Australia and India," Richardson told EWN Sport on January 22. "They have put these proposals together and those proposals are still to be discussed in full by our finance committee as an example and the full ICC board when it meets at the end of January.

"So at this stage it's far too premature for the ICC to make any comment on the content of the proposals because as we speak, we're still going through them, getting further clarifications, finding out exactly what is intended and then hopefully we will be able to have proper discussion about these at the board meeting at the end of the month."