ICC to debate monitoring of international venues

Haroon Lorgat wil chair the ICC's chief executives' committee meeting

A new method for evaluating international venues is the main issue on the agenda of the ICC's annual chief executives' committee (CEC) meeting in London on September 12. While the ICC has an approval process for granting venues international status, it does not conduct on-going appraisals of stadiums to ensure they continue to meet international standards.

The committee will consider a "Venue Accreditation System" in a response to the ICC's own Strategic Plan for 2011-15, which highlighted the need for grounds with better facilities for both players and fans. According to a statement from the ICC, "the proposal is that a venue will have to be re inspected and re-accredited every five years or when it undergoes major rebuilding or renovation."

The chief executive officers of the various national boards, or their representatives, will attend the meeting. The BCCI, however, does not have a chief executive and since its secretary, N Srinivasan, is unable to attend, the board nominated Sundar Raman, the IPL chief executive, to be its representative at the meeting even though Raman is not a BCCI office bearer.

A former advertising executive, Raman was hired by ex-IPL chairman Lalit Modi to help market the league. After the removal of Modi from the helm of the league in April 2010, Raman has been responsible for the operational aspects of the tournament.

Among the other items on the agenda are updates on international umpire performances, a subject that has come in for much discussion in connection with the Decision Review System (DRS). The DRS has been criticised in both the India-England and Australia-Sri Lanka series for failures of technology, failures of implementation and the lack of consistency in using the system.

Other topics that are up for discussion include the Future Tours Programme Agreement, the implementation of domestic anti-doping and anti-corruption codes and the ICC World Test Championship.

The CEC is made up of the chief executives of all 10 Full Member countries as well as three Associate Member representatives. The ICC's chief executive, Haroon Lorgat, will chair the meeting. The ICC president, in this case Sharad Pawar, and the chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee, Clive Lloyd, will also attend by invitation.

The Associate representatives are Warren Deutrom, the chief executive of Cricket Ireland, Francois Erasmus, the chairman of Namibia Cricket and John Cribbin, the honorary secretary of the Hong Kong Cricket Association.