Saudi Arabia elected as ICC’s 39th Associate member

The outcome of  ICC’s Full Council meeting in Edinburgh on Thursday saw Saudi Arabia being unanimously elected as the International Cricket Council’s 39th Associate Member.

“I congratulate Saudi Cricket Centre on becoming an Associate Member of the ICC and hope it will continue to play its positive and active role in promoting and developing the game in its territory, ”  ICC Chairman, Shashank Manohar, said.

The application put up by Saudi Cricket Centre (SCC) for Associate Membership had been pre-approved by the ICC Development Committee during its October 2015 meeting. It was followed by a full application and an inspection by ICC in March 2016 and finally getting drafted as an Associate Member,  yesterday.

SCC has been affiliated to ICC since 2003. According to a 2014 census report, SCC fulfils each criteria to be recognised as an Associate Member. It is a home to 4350 cricketers and aids around 80 instrumental cricket facilities. SCC recently hosted a domestic tournament which saw a healthy participation of over 1800 players and 106 cricket clubs.

Also, during the meeting, the 53-member Full Council unanimously ratified the suspensions of the USA Cricket Association (USACA) and the Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN), which were suspended in June 2015 and April 2016, respectively.

ICC Chairman Shashank Manohar’s take on this was that ICC delegations comprising Board Directors and senior management will visit the two countries to meet with the relevant stakeholders and provide an update during the October meetings.

“Both Nepal and the US are important members of the ICC as they have tremendous talent and potential. The ICC, as part of its game and market development strategy, will continue to provide the countries with as much support as possible so that they can put in place good governance and cricket structures,” he said.

“An ICC delegation will visit Nepal and will meet with the Nepal government and cricket officials, while I will lead an ICC team including Mr Dave Cameron, Mr Giles Clarke, Mr Imran Khawaja and Mr David Peever to the USA to meet with various stakeholders in that market and help them lay the foundation for the effective development of the sport (at grass roots and international level) and implementation of a governance structure that unifies the entire cricket community in the USA,” he added.

Manohar also thanked outgoing ICC President Zaheer Abbas for his contribution. The meeting ended with the distribution of ICC Development Programme Awards .