The missing “unanimous” ICC Cricket Committee recommendation

Both the BBC and the RTÉ reports picked up on Irish cricketer Trent Johnston’s tweet following the ICC Cricket Committee meeting at Lord’s yesterday to note a further development in the ICC World Cup 2015 story.  Here’s Trent Johnston’s tweet

Unanimous decision by ICC Cricket Committee to recommend to the Chief Exec Committee there be a qualifier for CWC 2015. A great result!

Trent Johnston is a member of the committee, and he was present at the meeting, so there’s no reason to doubt his account.  But that specific “unaminous decision” isn’t mentioned in the press release on the results of the ICC Cricket Committee meeting.

What is there are reasonable recommendations on changes to the laws of the game, and for extended use of the decision review system, and a recommendation on continued trials of a pink ball for day/night games.  [Hmm… – Ed]

But there’s also a somewhat bizarre recommendation for One-Day International games

 Two balls should be used in each innings, one from each end; (currently only one ball is being used and replaced by a replacement ball after 34 overs;

Two balls?  One from each end?!  [It’s just not cricket! – Ed]  Indeed.

Don’t worry, though.  These are only recommendations.  The actual decisions, including the one on the ICC World Cup 2015, will be taken elsewhere.  From the committee’s press release

The committee’s role is to make recommendations on cricket matters which then go forward to the Chief Executives’ Committee (CEC) for approval before finally being presented to the ICC Executive Board for approval.

As such, any recommendations made by the ICC Cricket Committee will not take effect until ratified and/or approved by the CEC and the Board, both of which are scheduled to meet in Hong Kong from 26 to 30 June.

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