ICC approve new Members

The ICC Annual Conference has approved applications from Guernsey, Jersey and Slovenia as Affiliate members and for Belgium to be upgraded from Affiliate to Associate status.

This takes European membership to 27 countries and the total membership of the ICC to 96 countries.

Welcoming the approval of the new member countries, ICC President Ehsan Mani said: "It is a tribute to the ICC Development Program that new members are being accepted into the ICC family on a regular basis. For Guernsey, Jersey, Mali and Slovenia the reward is newly-acquired status as Affiliate members while Belgium, Botswana, Japan, Kuwait and Thailand have all demonstrated to our other members they have the necessary structures in place to take the step up to Associate member status."

ICC also announced that the top six Associates will now be able to play full one-day internationals against each other or any other full member country. The top 6 Associates will also benefit from additional funding of US$500,000 over four years which will help them build a solid foundation for future expansion.