icc elections: ICC elections: India defeats Pakistan in a volatile ‘proxy’ battle | Cricket News – Times of India

MUMBAI: In what was seen as a proxy battle between cricket boards of India and their Pakistan counterpart, the candidate backed by the Indian board defeated his rival rather comfortably to become the next chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
According to sources, New Zealand’s Greg Barclay, backed by the Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI), defeated Pakistan-backed Imran Khwaja by a 12-4 margin. The number of votes for each candidate and margin of victory has not yet been officially confirmed.
There were 16 votes in the fray: 12 full members of the ICC (India, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Afghanistan and Pakistan); one female independent member (Former Pepsico Chairperson Indra Nooyi); two associate members (Scotland and Malaysia); and one vote belonging to Imran Khwaja – who was not representing any country at the ICC.

With elections over, the governing body is expected to call for its much detailed annual general meeting. Close to the meeting, the ICC will also elect its new deputy chairman, appoint new committees and oversee the elections for associate member representatives.
BCCI president Sourav Ganguly, who represents the Indian board at the ICC, is being seen as a favourite for the deputy’s chair. However, there is a view that since the chairman of the ICC represents the full members, the deputy chairman should be a representative of the 100-plus associate nations.
As TOI has written in the past, there is still a mystery surrounding which country Khwaja has represented.

“There’s only one independent member in the ICC and that’s Indra Nooyi. Every other director can be tracked to a home board. When Khwaja became the Associate Member Representative in 2018, which country’s nomination did he have?” asks a board member who voted against Khawaja.
The governing body hasn’t clarified it, but speculation has been rife that Khwaja was nominated by Mozambique.
“The ICC has to answer if this is true. If it is, then a representative from Mozambique could have run world cricket – the very thought of it is shocking. The ICC themselves have stated on record that Khwaja was not representing Singapore. What was going on?” ICC board members are asking.
Khwaja is known to be close to Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ehsan Mani.