Cricket's world body began as a three-nation club meeting at Lord's
In 1909 delegates from England, Australia and South Africa gathered at Lord's and formed the Imperial Cricket Conference. More than a century later that small imperial club has become the International Cricket Council, with 111 members, headquarters in Dubai, and revenue of over 900 million dollars in a single year.
The idea came from Abe Bailey, head of South African cricket, who wrote to the Marylebone Cricket Club on 30 November 1907 proposing an imperial board to regulate Tests between the three countries. Australia first balked, but Bailey kept lobbying, and on 15 June 1909 the conference was founded. A triangular Test series in England followed in 1912. West Indies, New Zealand and India joined as full members in 1926, and Pakistan in 1952. South Africa lost its place in May 1961 after leaving the Commonwealth.
The club slowly opened up. Renamed the International Cricket Conference in the mid-1960s, it began admitting non-Test nations as associates, starting with Ceylon, Fiji and the United States. Sri Lanka gained full status in 1981 and played its first Test in 1982. In July 1989 the body took its current name, and Colin Cowdrey became its first president not automatically drawn from the Marylebone club. The 1991 meeting in Melbourne was the first held outside England, and South Africa returned that year.
Governance reshaped itself. David Richards became the first chief executive in 1993, and Clyde Walcott the first non-British chairman. Bangladesh became the tenth full member in 2000, and in 2005 the council moved from Lord's to Dubai after Britain refused tax concessions. Afghanistan and Ireland joined the Test ranks in 2017, making twelve.
The council runs the global tournaments, including the World Cups, T20 World Cups and the World Test Championship, appoints umpires and referees for all internationals and fights corruption through a dedicated unit. It does not, however, write the laws of cricket; that job has stayed with the Marylebone Cricket Club since 1788. In 2023 it reported revenue of 904.385 million dollars.
Source: International Cricket Council
