Former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary and current International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Jay Shah was elected as a board member of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Advisory Board on Thursday.
Shah is among the 13 founding members of the new World Cricket Connects Advisory Board, which will be headed by former Sri Lanka captain and MCC president Kumar Sangakkara. Other founding members include former India captain Sourav Ganguly, former South Africa opener Graeme Smith, former Director of England Cricket Andrew Strauss, England women’s captain Heather Knight, and JioStar’s CEO (Sports) Sanjog Gupta.
The former BCCI secretary had been absent when the MCC held the inaugural World Cricket Connects forum last year, which saw over 100 leading voices at Lord’s discuss the state of the global game.
MCC recently announced that the second World Cricket Connects forum will take place later this year, on June 7 and June 8, before the World Test Championship (WTC) final at Lord’s between Australia and South Africa.
MCC chairman Mark Nicholas shared his thoughts on organizing the second World Cricket Connects forum later this year, saying, “We are looking forward to welcoming many of the game’s most influential figures to debate the most important topics that dominate global cricket. An important step has been made in the formation of the World Cricket Connects Advisory Board.”
“We have assembled an impressive group of the best minds in cricket across several different areas relevant to our sport. I am delighted to be working with this experienced group and excited about what we can collectively achieve for the benefit of the global game,” he added.
The new advisory board replaces the World Cricket Committee, which was formed in 2006. The committee held its final meeting last summer.
World Cricket Connects Advisory Board members: Kumar Sangakkara (chair), Anurag Dahiya (ICC Chief Commercial Officer), Chris Dehring (CWI CEO), Sourav Ganguly, Sanjog Gupta (JioStar CEO – Sports), Mel Jones, Heather Knight, Trudy Lindblade (Cricket Scotland CEO), Heath Mills (World Cricketers’ Association chair), Imtiaz Patel (Former SuperSport chair), Jay Shah, Graeme Smith, Andrew Strauss.
