The current International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman Jay Shah has been inducted into the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) advisory committee, which will replace the club’s world cricket. He was named among 13 founding members of the new World Cricket Connects advisory board that will be chaired by former Sri Lanka international and ex-MCC president Kumar Sangakkara.
MCC staged the inaugural World Cricket Connects forum in 2024, in which, over 100 notable dignitaries joined and voiced their opinion to discuss the state of the game. Meanwhile, on Thursday, January 23, MCC confirmed the second edition of the World Cricket Connects forum, which is set to take place at Lord’s on June 7 and 8, ahead of the World Test Championship finale between Australia and South Africa.
“We are looking forward to welcoming many of the game’s most influential figures to debate the most important topics that dominate global cricket,” MCC chairman Mark Nicholas said after the announcement.
Meanwhile, former cricketers such as Sourav Ganguly, Andrew Strauss, Graeme Smith and Mel Jones are also named among the 13 founding members of the newly formed committee. Apart from that, JioStar’s CEO (Sports) Sanjog Gupta, Cricket West Indies CEO Chris Dehring, and Cricket Scotland CEO Trudy Lindblade are also part of the committee among others.
Nicholas noted that they have assembled a group of the best minds and believes that collectively, they can contribute significantly to the benefit of the game.
“An important step has been made in the forming of the World Cricket Connects Advisory Board,” Nicholas said. “We have assembled an impressive group of the best minds in cricket across several different areas relevant to our sport. I am delighted to be working with this experienced group and excited about what we can collectively achieve for the benefit of the global game,” Nicholas added.
World Cricket Connects advisory board members: Kumar Sangakkara (chair), Anurag Dahiya (ICC chief commercial officer), Chris Dehring (CWI CEO), Sourav Ganguly, Sanjog Gupta (JioStar CEO – Sports), Mel Jones, Heather Knight, Trudy Lindblade (Cricket Scotland CEO), Heath Mills (World Cricketers’ Association chair), Imtiaz Patel (Former SuperSport chair), Jay Shah, Graeme Smith, Andrew Strauss.