Pankaj Khimji, Chairman of Oman Cricket, has been elected as the newest member for the Associate Director seat in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Board. The development came during the opening day of the 2022 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of ICC being held in Birmingham, on the sidelines of Women’s T20 debut in the upcoming 2022 Commonwealth Games. The voting was conducted at the Formal Associate Members meeting by way of a weighted secret ballot in which all voters (each Voting Associate Member and each Regional Representative) have three votes.
Pankaj Khimji, who also holds the Vice-President chair in the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Board, had previously lost out in the 2020 elections by a solitary vote, replaces Mahinda Vallipuram from Malaysia in the Board now. Oman Cricket (OC) have a strong working relationship with Indian Cricket Board (BCCI), which sees both Jay Shah and Pankaj Khimji heading the Asian Cricket Council, and could very soon also work together in the ICC Board, given the fact that there are chances of Jay Shah running for the post of ICC President after the current term of Greg Barclays ends later this year.
Presence of Pankaj Khimji on the board will definitely benefit Oman Cricket and the rest of the countries with Associate membership across the five (5) regions. He will be working alongside the other two ICC Associate Member Directors in Imran Khwaja from Singapore and Neil Speight from Bermuda.
ICC Chair Greg Barclay commented on the election “I would like to welcome the elected Associate Member Directors onto the Board for the next term. I look forward to working with Imran, Pankaj and Neil to continue to push the sport forward by delivering the strategy and growing the game so that more people can enjoy cricket across the world.”
