12:00 AM, April 02, 2015 / LAST MODIFIED: 07:44 PM, April 02, 2015
Mustafa Kamal of Bangladesh resigns as ICC president after World Cup snub
'Ugly mindset' spoiling cricket, says former ICC president
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Sports Reporter
Ever since the wide-scale changes in the International Cricket Council's constitution were made last year, the president's post was relegated to a ceremonial one. As per the controversial revamp, almost all the crucial calls fell under the ICC chairman's forte.
There was however, one honourable duty that remained under ICC president's purview: the right to give away the trophies to the champions during world events. But that too was taken away by Narayanaswami Srinivasan, who had handed Michael Clarke the World Cup trophy last Sunday.
Protesting the move, AHM Mustafa Kamal resigned from his position as ICC president immediately after arriving at the Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport from Australia yesterday afternoon.
Kamal, who took centre-stage of world cricket during a 40-odd minute press briefing, explained the reasons behind his decision.
“I have decided to resign. I can't work with people who don't follow the constitution. As per 3.3B of the constitution, the president is supposed to give away the trophy. There are no clauses to that. But I still couldn't do that.
“I resigned to let the whole world know the truth. I resigned to let the whole world know what's going on in the ICC. There are some people in the ICC who have an ugly mindset and that's not good for the game,” remarked Kamal.
“This is the first time in the history of cricket that the game has been insulted so badly. But, in the end, I don't think cricket ended up losing, because the person [responsible for the move] got booed by 90,000 people at Melbourne when his name was announced after the final.
“To me those 90,000 people in the stadium represented the views of the 16 crore people of Bangladesh. He was only saved when Sachin Tendulkar's name was announced after him. Things could have been different had Tendulkar's name not been announced,” he added.
Kamal explained that his role was usurped during an 'informal' meeting, which included four to five directors of the ICC board, that was organised a day before the final. Following the Bangladesh-India quarterfinal, Kamal criticised the umpires, describing them as poor and also stated that they might have had 'an agenda'. He also objected the biased phrases, supporting India, that were being shown on the big screens of the stadium during the game.
Kamal explained that he was asked to apologise for his remarks.
“I told them that I wouldn't do that. They then asked me to retract my statement. I decided against doing that either. I tried to reason with them and told them that they can ask me to submit a statement explaining my comments, but I won't apologise or retract my statements.
“However, they did not agree to that and told me that I will not be able to give away the trophy to the winning team,” said Kamal.
“I told them that that was unconstitutional, and that if they wanted to change the norm then they would have to go through the official process, which would take a while. However, they told me that they would take care of it,” he added.
When asked if his fallout with the ICC would have a backlash on Bangladesh's bilateral series', Kamal said, “Why should it? I don't expect any such thing to happen.” The Tigers are scheduled to play Pakistan, India, South Africa and Australia this year.
International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday confirmed Kamal's resignation and an official handout read: “The ICC Board will now consider the vacant position of the ICC President at its forthcoming meeting in Dubai on 15 and 16 April.”
Kamal was a member of the ICC executive board for the past six years. Apart from being a member of the board, he served the organisation as a vice-president for two years and president for nine months, three months short of his one-year stint.
Kamal resigns | The Daily Star
One would expect dhoti team with all their bharati capability to do match manipulation at least would be able to beat Australia and New Zealand and keeping the world cup within Asia.But that pathetic dhoti even could not make a slightest fight and run away without dhoti.
