Emirates Cricket Board's Secretary-General Mubashshir Usmani along with Keralite Sumod Damodar of Botswana Cricket Association and Jalandhar-born Rashpal Bajwa of Cricket Canada elected to ICC Chief Executives’ Committee

By K.R. Nayar

Emirates Cricket Board, which had played a major role recently in promoting the game by staging many events of cricket playing nations, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, has earned its honor. The International Cricket Council today confirmed that Emirates Cricket Board Secretary-General Mubashshir Usmani has been elected into the International Cricket Council Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC) following an online ballot.

Mubashshir Usmani 

Since Mubashshir Usmani took charge as the Secretary-General, the UAE has hosted many major events like the Asia Cup, top leagues like the Indian Premier League, the Pakistan Super League, as well as Tests, One-day and T20 series of many top cricket playing nations. Mubashshir will be joined by Sumod Damodar of Botswana Cricket Association, a Keralite settled in Botswana, and Jalandhar-born Rashpal Bajwa of Cricket Canada.

UAE will be one of the Associate Member representatives in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC) that will be represented by Mubashshir Usmani along with two other Associate Member representatives. It is understood that Mubashshir garnered the highest number of votes from an electoral college of 44 on Friday.

Mubashshir’s efforts in creating a stage for those nations wanting to host their events here have been appreciated by many cricket-playing nations. He will be part of the CEC until the end of the 2023 ICC Annual Conference. The other two Associate Member representatives will be Rashpal Bajwa of Cricket Canada and Sumod Damodar of Botswana Cricket Association. In fact, Sumod was re-elected to serve another two-year term on the CEC.

Sumod Damodar

Mubashshir, Rashpal, and Sumod will be part of the CEC along with the representatives of the full members and ex-officio members of the ICC office. Cricket Canada has been an associate member of ICC since 1968. Rashpal was born in Jalandhar, India and migrated to Canada in 1996, and played cricket from 1997 in Canada.  He was elected Cricket Canada’s Vice President in 2016, where he served two terms before assuming the role of President in 2020.

Rashpal Bajwa

Sumod, who was among six candidates contesting for the three elective positions in the CEC in 2017, was voted alongside Neil Speight of Bermuda and Betty Timmer of the Netherlands. In fact, he has earned the honour of being the first Malayalee to be elected to the ICC Executive Committee. 

Sumod made his debut for the Botswana national cricket team in the Zone VI Tournament held in Zambia in 1993 before taking an active interest in the administration and promotion of cricket and then went on to become Public Secretary of Bostwana Cricket Association. In 2002, Bostswana achieved Affiliate Membership of the ICC. Incidentally, Sumod is the son of a renowned Sharjah-based businessman V. Damodar, who has backed the formation of the Sharjah Indian School and Indian Association Sharjah.

 

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