Cricket South Africa has declined to endorse Graeme Smith’s stand on backing Sourav Ganguly for the International Cricket Council president’s post. Shortly after CSA Director of Cricket Smith had named Ganguly as the right choice to succeed ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar, the South African cricket body had issued a clarification on its position.
The election of the International Cricket Council independent chairman will take place at the ICC Annual Conference later this year. Shashank Manohar, also a former president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, is the current chairman and is about to complete his second two-year term in this office. He had declined to contest for another term.
“We must respect both the ICC protocol and our own protocol in deciding which candidate to back,” CSA President and Chairman of the Board Chris Nenzani has said in a sharp reaction to comments made by Smith during a teleconference yesterday. “There have been no candidates nominated as yet and once such nominations have been made the Board of CSA will take its decision in terms of its own protocol and give the chairman the mandate to exercise his vote as an ICC Board Director accordingly.
“We have the highest regard for the opinions of our Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith, who is a well-respected figure in world cricket and has already made an immense contribution in fulfilling his mandate to make our cricket teams world leaders again.
“At the moment we don’t want to anticipate any candidates who may be nominated for this important position to lead the game we all love,” concluded Mr. Nenzani.