Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), Ian Watmore, resigned from his position on Thursday. Watmore served as the chairman of the ECB for only 13 months, despite having been appointed for a five-year term.
Watmore, 63, has reached a “mutual agreement” with the board to leave his role following the end of the domestic season. He had faced criticism following his decision to scrap the Pakistan trip, involving England’s men’s and women’s teams.
Why Watmore resigned?
Ian Watmore, who took over from Colin Graves in September 2020, departs after serving only 13 months of a five-year term.
His resignation comes a day before England is to announce whether its players will travel to Australia for the Ashes series scheduled for December and January, and just weeks after the ECB withdrew its men’s and women’s teams from a tour of Pakistan in a decision that has created a schism in world cricket.
Commenting on the resignation, the ECB said Watmore was leaving his position immediately, following the end of the domestic season that contained the inaugural season of a controversial new competition, The Hundred.
“It is with regret that I step down as chair of the ECB, but I do so in mindfulness of my own wellbeing and that of the game which I love,” Watmore said.
“I was appointed to the post in a pre-pandemic era, but Covid has meant the role and its demands on time are dramatically different to all our original expectations, which has taken a personal toll on me.
Mounting pressure
Some media outlets reported that ECB chairman Ian Watmore has left his role after coming under fire for the decision to cancel England ‘s scheduled tour of Pakistan.
According to a report from the Times, the decision to scrap the trip to Pakistan ramped up the pressure on Watmore. That was followed by a meeting with county chiefs last month which a source told the Times was a “shambles”.
England’s men and women teams were due to play two Twenty20s in Rawalpindi on October 13 and 14. The women’s team were also due to play three ODIs in Pakistan on October 17, 19, and 21.
PCB chairman Ramiz Raja had lashed out at the “Western bloc” who he said “used and binned” his country in the wake of New Zealand and England cancelling their tours of the South Asian country.
Former West Indies cricketer Michael Holding also criticised the ECB after it decided to cancel the tour of Pakistan, saying it showed “Western arrogance”.
“What that signal sends to me, is the same Western arrogance. I will treat you how I feel like treating you, it doesn’t matter what you think, I’ll just do what I want,” Holding said on Wednesday.
British premier remarks
Last month, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had also expressed anger over the ECB’s decision to cancel the tour to Pakistan scheduled for November.
The Times report quoted the British premier and senior ministers of the Commonwealth Office as saying that the decision “has damaged relations between the UK and the Pakistan government”.
FM Qureshi’s statement
Following the ECB chairman’s resignation, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has asserted that “Pakistan’s viewpoint seems to have been registered” by the board.
Qureshi said during his recent visit to the United Kingdom, he had raised the issue of England’s decision to pull out of the Pakistan tour with his UK counterpart, Elizabeth Truss.
“We raised the issue of the ECB taking a unilateral decision to cancel the Pakistan tour and how it disappointed cricket fans,” he said, adding that Truss informed him that the decision was independently taken by the ECB.
“The UK foreign secretary assured us that she would convey our grievances to the ECB and, with the resignation of Ian Watmore, it seems that Pakistan’s viewpoint has been registered by the board,” Qureshi reiterated.
