Style sets shape in ICC - Mahela and Dravid appointed to ICC Cricket Committee

Kumble gets three-year extension as Chairman; Lord's to host annual summit on 31 May and 1 June

Former India captain Rahul Dravid and ex-Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardena have been appointed to the ICC Cricket Committee, adding even more cricketing experience to the list of eminent people already on the committee.

Dravid and Jayawardena have played 1,161 international matches between them from 1996 to 2015, and each has been appointed for a three-year term. They will attend their first meeting at Lord's on 31 May and 1 June, three weeks before the ICC Annual Conference takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Dravid, along with former Australia off-spinner and ex-Chief Executive of Federation of International Cricketers' Association (FICA), Tim May, have been elected by the current Test captains as current player representatives, replacing former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, who has completed his final three-year term, and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan, who has completed his three-year term. Jayawardena has been appointed as a past player representative and takes over from former Australia captain Mark Taylor, who has also completed his final three-year term.

Richard Kettleborough, three-time ICC Umpire of the Year, has been appointed as umpires' representative in the committee and replaces Steve Davis, who retired last year.

Meanwhile, Anil Kumble has been re-appointed as the Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee for a three-year term. The former India captain was appointed as the Chair in 2012 and will now continue to head the group until 2018.

ICC General Manager – Cricket, Geoff Allardice, who also administers the ICC Cricket Committee meeting, said: "I want to thank Mark Taylor, Kumar Sangakkara, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Steve Davis for their significant contribution to this committee.

"I welcome Rahul Dravid, Mahela Jayawardena, Tim May and Richard Kettleborough, and I am confident that these highly credentialed individuals will carry on the good work of their predecessors to make the sport even more competitive and attractive."

The ICC Cricket Committee is representative of all stakeholders in the modern game, including players, umpires and the media. It is empowered to make recommendations on cricket playing issues to the Chief Executives' Committee (CEC) and, if the matter is a policy matter, the ICC Board for approval. 

The ICC Cricket Committee is:

Chairman – Anil Kumble (former India captain)

Ex-Officio – Shashank Manohar (ICC Chairman) and David Richardson (ICC Chief Executive)

Past Player representative –Andrew Strauss (former England captain); Mahela Jayawardena (former Sri Lanka captain)

Current Player representative - Rahul Dravid (former India captain); Tim May (former Australia off-spinner and ex-CEO of FICA)

Full Member team coach representative – Darren Lehmann (Australia coach)

Associate representative – Kevin O'Brien (Ireland all-rounder)

Women's Cricket representative – Clare Connor (former England women's team captain)

Full Member representative – David White (NZC chief executive)

Media representative – Ravi Shastri (former India captain and a respected commentator)

Umpires' representative –Richard Kettleborough (member of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires)

Referees' representative – Ranjan Madugalle (ICC chief match referee and former Sri Lanka captain)

MCC representative – John Stephenson (MCC's Head of Cricket)

Shashank Manohar elected unopposed as independent ICC Chairman

"I look forward to working with all stakeholders to shape the future of cricket, which has a proud history and rich tradition," says Mr Manohar

President's post abolished as ICC's Full Council approves constitutional amendments

Mr Shashank Manohar has been elected by the Board unanimously and unopposed as the Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC) following the ICC Full Council's approval of constitutional amendments proposed by the Board following its April meeting.

Mr Manohar, who on Tuesday resigned as the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), is the first elected independent Chairman of the game's governing body and will commence his two-year term with immediate effect.

According to the election process, ICC directors were each allowed to nominate one candidate, who had to be either a present or past ICC director. Nominees with the support of two or more Full Member directors would have been eligible to contest the election, which was scheduled to have been concluded by 23 May.

However, given that Mr Manohar was the sole nominee for the position and the Board has now unanimously supported his appointment, the independent Audit Committee Chairman, Mr Adnan Zaidi, who has been overseeing the election process, has declared the process complete, and Mr Manohar the successful candidate.

Mr Manohar is a prominent Indian lawyer who served his first stint as the BCCI President from 2008-2011. Following the passing of Mr Jagmohan Dalmiya, Mr Manohar was re-elected as the BCCI President in October 2015 and, by virtue of that position, has held the role of ICC Chairman since then.

Commenting on his election, Mr Manohar said: "It is an honour to be elected as the Chairman of the International Cricket Council and for that I am thankful to all the ICC directors who have put their faith and trust in my abilities. I also take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues in the BCCI who have supported me during my recent time as the BCCI's President.

"These are exciting times for international cricket as we are presently carrying out a comprehensive review of the 2014 constitutional amendments which is aimed at not only improving governance structures, but cricket structures as well. The ultimate objective is to grow our sport and engage a whole new generation of fans and I look forward to working with all stakeholders to shape the future of cricket, which has a proud history and rich tradition."

In order to accommodate the new position of an "independent" ICC Chairman, on Monday the Full Council unanimously approved various amendments to the ICC's constitution. The amendments also included the abolishment of the President's post with effect from the 2016 ICC Annual Conference in Edinburgh, which has become redundant.

​Kusal is free - ICC withdraws disciplinary proceedings against Kusal Perera under ICC Anti-Doping Code

​ICC withdraws disciplinary proceedings against Kusal Perera under ICC Anti-Doping Code after Qatar Laboratory withdraws original Adverse Analytical Finding

ICC Chief Executive David Richardson: "We are seeking an urgent explanation from WADA and the laboratory in an attempt to understand what has transpired and what will be done to ensure it does not happen again"

"No evidence that Mr Perera has cheated through the use of performance enhancing substances"

Mr Perera is free to train and compete with immediate effect

The International Cricket Council (ICC) today announced that it has withdrawn disciplinary charges against Sri Lanka batsman Kusal Perera and lifted the provisional suspension previously imposed on him.

Mr Perera is, therefore, now free to return to domestic and international cricket without restriction and with immediate effect.

The ICC has made the decision after the WADA-accredited laboratory in Qatar today withdrew its original Adverse Analytical Finding following further investigations.

DETAILED ICC STATEMENT IS AS FOLLOWS

In November 2015, the WADA-accredited laboratory in Qatar reported to the ICC that urine samples collected out-of-competition from Sri Lankan international player, Kusal Perera, had tested positive for 19-Norandrostenedione, an anabolic steroid prohibited under WADA's Prohibited List.  

Pursuant to the ICC's WADA-compliant anti-doping code, the full laboratory documentation packages in respect of each of the findings were reviewed by three members of the ICC's Independent Review Board (comprising of world leaders in the medical, scientific and legal fields of anti-doping), each of whom independently confirmed that Mr Perera had a case to answer.  Accordingly, on 7 December 2015, the ICC charged Mr Perera with an anti-doping rule violation and, in accordance with the mandatory requirements of the code, provisionally suspended Mr Perera until that charge was resolved. 

Since that time, the ICC has worked with Mr Perera's lawyers as they have attempted to identify the source of the 19-Norandrostenedione found in the samples.  As part of those efforts, the ICC sought further information from the Qatar laboratory and granted various extensions of time to the player's legal team to allow it to carry out additional analysis and investigation work.  In addition, the Qatar laboratory analysed the B samples provided by Mr Perera in January 2016, and reported that that analysis confirmed the presence of the same substance in those samples. 

In a recent letter, Mr Perera's lawyers provided an update on their investigation into potential sources of the 19-Norandrostenedione found in his samples, but also suggested for the first time that the Qatar laboratory might have misidentified impurities in the samples as 19-Norandrostenedione, given the very low concentrations of that substance found in the samples.  

In response, the ICC commissioned an independent expert to review all of the Qatar laboratory's findings.  Whilst the independent expert concluded that the Qatar laboratory had correctly identified 19-Norandrostenedione in the samples, that expert's view was that an adverse analytical finding by the laboratory was not sustainable, because, for various scientific and technical reasons, it could not be ruled out that the 19-Norandrostenedione was produced naturally in the player's body and/or formed in the samples after the player provided them.  These concerns were immediately presented by the ICC to the Qatar laboratory, which has today confirmed that it has withdrawn the Adverse Analytical Finding and is instead reporting an Atypical Finding.  It has advised that no specific further investigation of the player's two samples is warranted, but has recommended the monitoring of the player's steroid profile moving forward. 

As a result, the ICC has immediately withdrawn the disciplinary proceedings previously brought against Mr Perera, and he is therefore free to train and compete domestically and internationally again without restriction with immediate effect. 

ICC Chief Executive David Richardson said: "Cricket is proud of its compliance with the structures and systems required by WADA and takes comfort from the fact that samples are tested in accordance with WADA-approved standards and at WADA-accredited laboratories.  However, the ICC is troubled in this case by the fact that the Qatar laboratory has issued an Adverse Analytical Finding that has then had to be withdrawn and replaced with an Atypical Finding.

"Whilst I am confident that this is an isolated incident in respect of tests commissioned by the ICC, we are seeking an urgent explanation from WADA and the laboratory in an attempt to understand what has transpired and what will be done to ensure it does not happen again.  We will also immediately review our own internal processes to see whether there might be additional steps over and above those required by WADA that the ICC could put in place in order to give international cricketers further comfort." 

He went on to say: "Had it not been for the diligence of Mr Perera's legal team and the ICC's own desire to uncover the explanation for the reported findings, the consequences could well have been different, and that should be of concern to all involved in the fight against doping.  We regret what Mr Perera has had to endure, and would like to commend him for the manner in which he has conducted himself throughout this period.

"We wish to make it clear that there is no evidence that Mr Perera has ever used performance-enhancing substances and we wish him well in his future cricketing endeavours."