But Ramiz, whose own future at the board is now under a cloud, took some solace from the fact that it sparked discussion among Full Members over the weekend ICC meeting, at the chief executive level first and then at the board meeting itself on Sunday.
“Great discussion regarding 4 Nations series today at the ICC meet,” Ramiz tweeted. “As a concept it was welcomed and debated upon and seen as promoting the interest of the game. Fingers crossed. More when I am back at the office tomorrow.”
One official echoed Ramiz’s tweet that there were “plenty of good discussions around it and acknowledgement that from a cricketing perspective it’s a great idea.” But given that the ICC events schedule is now fixed for the next cycle and that the FTP is almost done, fitting something like this in was, in a practical sense, a non-starter in the short-to-medium term.
A big driver behind that is the need for the ICC to sell its media rights for the next cycle with clarity in their schedule and no ambiguity about the number of events and new tournaments being added.
There was also the small matter of the members who weren’t included in Ramiz’s proposal; that is, the eight members outside Pakistan, India, Australia and England. They were, predictably, not happy at not being considered.
How much more will emerge once he s back in office, as Ramiz tweeted, is also not certain. With the dramatic removal of Imran Khan from the premiership of Pakistan in dramatic fashion on Saturday night and Sunday morning, Ramiz had lost the man who appointed him chairman as he went into the ICC meeting.
Ramiz did not respond to questions on Sunday about his future but with a new prime minister to be appointed this week, logic would suggest – as has been the case with nearly every change in government in Pakistan – that he or she brings with them a new administration to head the cricket board.
The other significant development from the board meeting was that a new process on electing the next ICC chairman has been agreed upon in principle. That will take place in November once Greg Barclay, the current chair, comes to the end of his two-year term.
Barclay became ICC chairman in November 2020, after a long and fractious process after Shashank Manohar stepped down in June that year. Barclay eventually beat Imran Khwaja after the second round of voting took place because he had been unable to secure enough votes in the first round.
In the first round, he won 10 votes which, though comfortably more than Khwaja’s six, meant they would go through another vote. It was in that round, when CSA became his 11th vote, that he won.