ICC would be silly to reject Woolf report: CA

Sydney, Feb 17 (IANS) Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland said Friday that the International Cricket Council (ICC) executive board would be silly to reject the recommendations of the Woolf report on cricket's global governance due to objections from the Indian cricket board.

Sutherland feels there is a lot of really good and sensible stuff in the report about best practice governance that could impact international cricket in a good way.

The Woolf report, commissioned by the ICC, recommended vast changes to the ICC's executive board structure and also offered a wide range of measures to improve its conduct.

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president N. Srinivasan was the first to reject it and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is also understood to have expressed reservations about Woolf's findings.

Sutherland said it would be hasty to throw the report in the dustbin just on the basis of objections from two members and encouraged ICC to discuss it when they meet again in April.

"Cricket Australia's view on that is the members of the board of the ICC have commissioned this review, it has got some recommendations about what's best practice and from that viewpoint it would be silly to just throw it out," Sutherland told reporters here.

"No organisation should be satisfied that it can't improve in some way by taking on recommendations to bring us closer to best practice. I think there is a lot of really good stuff there and sensible stuff about best practice governance and that is what any cricket organisation, any proper organisation, would want. There's also some practicalities of course in getting from one step to the next and they're the challenges the directors and ultimately the members will need to tackle," he said.

The ICC chief executives committee meet in Dubai next month before the next executive board meeting. Sutherland, who will be present in Dubai meeting, said he would not be surprised if the Woolf report doesn't find a space in the agenda.

"It's a (executive) board issue first and foremost. As I understand it, the board received the report and didn't really have much discussion on it in the (previous) meeting; their next meeting is some time in April, so that is really the next stage. Cricket Australia will discuss it a little bit at our board meeting on the 27th - that is something that will be a little bit of a process," he said.