Berry S: On David Richards - Chief Exec. ICC (16Jul1993)

Smoke from the clocktower (Thanks::Sunday Telegraph) Scyld Berry on David Richards, the man given the job of initiating cricket's new world order On Thursday week cricket makes an attempt at a new world order when the first chief executive of the International Cricket Council takes up his post under the clocktower at Lord's where the groundstaff used to be. Deservedly, David Richards will be paid to front an organisation which at times has made the TCCB seem popular and responsive. The circumstances of the appointment of Richards were almost papal. The ICC supremo could not be English, just as the present Pope could not be Italian, because a complete change from the traditional order was required. On the other hand, just as a Third World Pope would have been too radical a departure for some, so the first executive could not come from the West Indies or Asia. An Australian it had to be, and in Australia there was only one cricket administrator sufficiently able and efficient to be a career diplomat. Richards could be forgiven for thinking that he has been shaped by destiny for this newly-created job. On joining the Victorian Cricket Association in 1972, after graduating from university in his native Melbourne, he spent his first day sitting beside Sir Donald Bradman and watching the second half of Garfield Sobers' innings of 254. Not a bad job, he thought. On moving to the Australian Cricket Board in 1980, Richards had to resolve the conflicts generated by World Series Cricket - "Hindsight will tell you it was good for the game" - and by the Kim Hughes-led rebel tours of South Africa before Australian cricket could regain its former strength. He can justly say, on leaving Australian cricket: "I can walk away with no concerns about the future." Richards will not give media interviews before taking up his appointment, so it was an illuminating exposition when he spoke last Tuesday at a conference at Australia House on the future of ICC. He cited one formative moment when he attended a cricket dinner in Sharjah - having been so insular in his early career that he did not know where the place was - and listened to a typical cricket speech with his back to the top table. When he turned round, he saw the speaker was an Arab in white robes and realised: "Cricket is becoming internationalised." The greatest criticism to be made of the ICC in its old lethargic inefficiency was that it did little to make the game international. Here Richards has his greatest ambitions: "If I look in my crystal ball for the next 10 to 20 years, I can see five new countries playing one- day cricket competitively and developing a cricket culture, starting with Bangladesh. Then they may go on to play Test cricket one day." Satellite TV, especially the Star network in Asia, "will be the great new evangelist for the game". It is a startingly internationalist statement when he says: "The future of the game lies with the Associate Members of ICC more than the Full Members." To this end he welcomes the change which will see three Associates go through from the qualifying tournament in Kenya next February to the World Cup in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He defends the @100,000 handouts to them but implies he will be wanting more accountability. Richards is pleased to note a worldwide improvement in behaviour, not least in grade cricket in Melbourne where he once captained Ashwood. "In the last two or three years we have been seeing a reassertion of the basic values." For this he gives credit to the ICC Code of Conduct, when it might be more a natural swinging back of the pendulum. The opening test for Richards comes at the ICC meeting next month when constitutional changes have to be agreed. As an Australian, he might have been suspected of wanting to preserve the veto for the Founder Members, England and Australia, but he thinks it will be abolished if "a few quid pro quos" are accepted. "Countries like Pakistan and the West Indies have become equal or better on the field and have to be treated as such administratively. "If he can succeed in initiating a new world order in cricket, he could become a papal candidate as well. posted by Vicky on r.s.c.