Johannesburg, May 22: A few hours after Cricket South Africa (CSA) Director of Cricket Graeme Smith backed Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President Sourav Ganguly for taking over as Chairman of the International Cricket Council (ICC), CSA President Chris Nenzani said that the board will take a decision of which candidate to back "in terms of its own protocol."
"We must respect both the ICC protocol and our own protocol in deciding which candidate to back. There have been no candidates nominated as yet and once such nominations have been made the board of CSA will take its decision in terms of its own protocol and give the chairman the mandate to exercise his vote as an ICC Board Director accordingly," Nenzani said in an official statement.
"We have the highest regard for the opinions of our Director of Cricket, Graeme Smith, who is a well-respected figure in world cricket and has already made an immense contribution in fulfilling his mandate to make our cricket team world leaders again. At the moment we don't want to anticipate any candidates who may be nominated for this important position to lead the game we all love," he added.
Smith had earlier said that it would be "great to see a cricket man like" Ganguly helming the ICC. "I think that will be good for the game; I think it will be good for the modern game as well. He understands it, he has played it at the highest level, he is respected, and his leadership will be key to us going forward," the former South Africa skipper said.
CSA Chief Executive Jacques Faul also hinted at backing Smith's endorsement. "I think India must play a leadership role when it comes to the Future Tours Programme and a responsible one," he said. "Our engagement with Sourav has been very positive in his willingness to help us. We have also checked this with the leadership of CSA. We would support an Indian candidate at this stage. But we have also got to maybe look at the integrity of the whole process.
"I don't think there are any nominations out there of any candidates that I know of, so they are still in the process, but from a CSA point of view, we have no problem supporting any Indian candidate. But to be fair, we've got to look at who has been nominated and bring it back to our board and get a mandate for it."