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Dubai: An outstanding group of current and former administrators and players as well as leading academics, historians and statisticians will gather this week in Oxford for the ICC History Conference.
The conference, taking place on July 22 and 23 in the Nissan Institute at St Antony’s College, Oxford, will look back at the past 100 years of the game as part of the ICC’s centenary year celebrations.
Former ICC President Ehsan Mani and the organisation’s first Chief Executive David Richards will come together to reflect upon the big issues they had to deal with during their times at the helm of the global game.
And ex-international greats Bishan Bedi, Angus Fraser, Sourav Ganguly, Clive Lloyd and Bob Willis will assess how the game has changed since they began their careers.
The ICC began as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 with just three members – Australia, England and South Africa. A century later it has 104 members and its development over those 100 years will be charted by a host of experts.
They include Sir Hilary Beckles, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Principal and Professor of Economic and Social History of the University of the West Indies, Brian Stoddart, the former Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University, Australia, Boria Majumdar of the University of Central Lancashire, Don Neely, the President of New Zealand Cricket, and leading journalists and cricket historians Mihir Bose, David Frith and Gideon Haigh, among others.
Women’s cricket past and present will be represented by former England captain Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, who lifted the inaugural women’s world cup in 1973, as well as current captain Charlotte Edwards and her team-mate Ebony Rainford-Brent, the latter duo part of the squad that holds the ICC Women’s World Cup, the ICC World Twenty20 trophy and The Ashes.
MCC curator Adam Chadwick will talk about the importance of cricket heritage and perpetuating the game’s legacy, and David Kendix and Rob Eastaway, two of the men behind the Reliance Mobile ICC team and player rankings respectively, will explain how statistics and rankings allow comparisons across history.
To bring the conference right up to date, it will also be attended by current ICC President David Morgan and Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat, as well as ICC Director and England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Chairman Giles Clarke and ECB Chief Executive David Collier.
Looking ahead to the conference, Morgan said: “One of the key themes of the ICC’s centenary year is tradition, to use 2009 as an opportunity to look back at the game’s rich history, to honour past greats and recognise milestones.We are honouring those past greats through the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame in association with the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations, recognising the achievements of the great players who have graced the game."
And the ICC History Conference will be an opportunity for administrators past and present, as well as players, journalists, academics, historians and statisticians to come together and reflect on the events of the past 100 years. It should be a fantastic occasion and a highlight of the ICC centenary year.
