Dubai: BCCI secretary Jay Shah will take over as the next chairman of the ICC in December after he emerged as the sole nominee for the high-profile job, the global governing body for cricket announced Tuesday here.
The 35-year-old will succeed incumbent chairman Greg Barclay, who decided against running for the post for a third consecutive term of two years.
“I am humbled by the nomination as the Chair of the International Cricket Council,” Shah stated in a release issued by the ICC.
“I am committed to working closely with the ICC team and our member nations to further globalise cricket. 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,” Shah added in the release.
“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 will leave his current position as BCCI secretary, which he has held since 2019, in the board’s annual general meeting to be held towards the end of the next month or in October.
Shah is currently the head of ICC’s most powerful sub-committee, the Finance and Commercial Affairs (F&CA), a role that he took over in 2022.
The only question that was doing the round even a couple of days back was whether Shah will file his nomination for the post of ICC chairman. It was a well-known fact that 15 of the 16 voting members, including England and Australia were supporting him.
By getting elected unopposed Shah at the age of 35 Shah became the youngest-ever ICC chairman. Only four other Indians have been ICC chairman. They are Jagmohan Dalmiya, Sharad Pawar, N Srinivasan and Shashank Manohar.
PNN & Agencies