The ICC formed a governance committee, but Faisal Hasnain argues the first real test is whether it audits itself before scrutinizing member boards.
The ICC has formed a governance committee. On paper, that sounds like progress. But committees don't improve governance. Actions do.
My first recommendation to this new committee is simple: start by reading the Woolf Report. Lord Woolf's report, published in 2012, identified serious governance and structural weaknesses within the ICC and international cricket more broadly. Its recommendations remain just as relevant today as they were then. And that's not a compliment to the sport's administrators.
Committees don't improve governance. Actions do.
After reading the Woolf Report, the committee should commission a fully independent governance review — of the ICC itself, not just its member boards. There's a particular arrogance in any institution scrutinizing everyone else's backyard while leaving its own in disorder. Clean up your own house first.
That review needs to ask hard questions: Is there adequate transparency? Is there real accountability? Are there conflicts of interest in how decisions get made? And fundamentally, is the ICC operating as a modern, global governing body?
Is the ICC fit for purpose, or just a private members club and a glorified event management company?
That's the question worth putting on the table. Because right now, too much of what the ICC does looks less like global sports governance and more like a closed club managing its own calendar of events, and essentially an event management company.
Whatever this review concludes, it needs to be made public. Good governance is built on honesty and transparency, not reports that quietly disappear into a drawer. Publishing the findings isn't optional — it's the minimum condition for being taken seriously.
If the ICC genuinely wants to lead world cricket, it has to hold itself to the same standards it claims to expect of others. That would be a real signal that this committee means business.
"If the ICC wants to lead world cricket, it should be prepared to hold itself to the same standards it says it expects of others."
The skepticism is hard to shake, though. Any organization that has spent years resisting transparency is unlikely to suddenly embrace it because a new committee has been formed. Especially if the structural pillars haven't changed and the people haven't changed. And forming a committee, however well-intentioned, changes neither of those things anywhere.
The test isn't whether the ICC has a governance committee. The test is whether anything different will actually happen within.
We shall wait and see.
