KATHMANDU, Nov 16: Former President of Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) Binay Raj Pandey and industrialist Basanta Chaudhary has been named the co conveners of the ICC Advisory Committee on Tuesday formed with the view to solve the disputes of Nepali cricket.
The first meeting of the ICC Advisory Committee held in the capital under presence of ICC representatives took decision to the effect. The meeting was held one and a half month after the formation of the Committee under presence of Associate Member Director at ICC Imran Khwaja and Finance Manager Amar Sheikh. The international cricket governing body ICC had formed a six-member advisory committee on early October.
The meeting also appointed former national captain Pawan Agrawal as its secretary and National Sports Council (NSC) press advisor Rohit Dahal as spokesperson. Choodamani Paudel, the joint secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and former acting President of CAN are other members of the Committee.
ICC holds meeting with suspended CAN
The ICC had suspended CAN on April 25 that had been engulfed in internal dispute since long time. The ICC had imposed a ban on CAN owing to controversial election and government interference. Chatur Bahadur Chand was elected as CAN president through a controversial midnight election on December 14 without taking the consent of the NSC.
The NSC responded by dismissing the Chand-led committee and formed a new ad hoc committee under the leadership of Ramesh Silwal on January 8.Since the suspension of CAN, the ICC has been directly taking care of Nepal's international cricketing activities.
ICC had formed the Advisory Committee on early October with the roadmap to draft a new statute of the cricket governing body of the country and facilitate in holding a fresh election by July 2017. The ICC had also proposed General Secretary Ashok Nath Pyakurel of the elected CAN to join the committee. But the elected committee refused ICC's proposal citing that the ICC action was against the established norms and it would only institutionalized government interference.
Among two conveners, Pandey has been assigned to deal with constitutional and administrative aspect of the cricket while Chaudhary has been assigned to coordinate with government and governmental agencies.
ICC representative Khwaja said, “We made certain decision to see how we are going to proceed from where we are. Among the decisions, we want to make sure that ICC is not physically present in Nepal. So we are requesting Pandey and Chaudhary to be conveners to execute and explore how the roadmap can be implicated.”
“Pandey will be dealing with the constitutional aspects of how the new cricket structure will be formed and he will also look at administrative side of things. Chaudhary will be managing government relations and doing what is necessary to ensure it will be accepted by all quarters and eventually election takes place,” Khwaja added.
One of the co conveners, Pandey said, “The meeting was finally held and now we have the environment to work. The meeting will have positive impact to solve the crisis of Nepali cricket. Earlier, there was confusion regarding the responsibility of the committee,” he said.
Pandey also warned that Nepal's membership in ICC would even be cancelled if the Advisory Committee failed to conduct the assigned task by June. “Nepal's membership could even be suspended if we failed by June. ICC suspends any member association during such disputes. And even the membership is likely to be cancelled if the stakeholders do not become serious to solve problems. If the membership is cancelled it could take years to reach current stage after beginning the new membership process from affiliate member,” he said.
The General Secretary of the elected CAN however claimed that the Advisory Committee cannot come up with solution. “They themselves are in confusion. Sometimes they saw it is a work execution committee and the other time they saw it is an Advisory Committee. Sometimes they claim it will run cricket activities in the country and other time they saw it will form only statute. However, the statute of the CAN does not permit them to undertake these works. Our fight for the legal right is running on in court,” he said.
