Richard Whittam KC is the new discipline committe chair which will take over duties from the Cricket Discipline Commission.
Richard Whittam KC has been appointed chair of the Cricket Discipline Panel (CDP).
The Cricket Discipline Commission will be replaced by this new, independent tribunal to hear cases involving regulatory violations in English professional cricket and the ensuing sanctions.
Following an open hiring procedure, the ECB board appointed Whittam to a four-year tenure. The 64-year-old has a background in sports and practices criminal and regulatory law.
Last year, Whittam was named Head of Independent Judiciary for the Rugby Football Union, following his tenure as a deputy high court judge from 2016 to 2022. Since 2014, he has served as the chair of rugby union’s appeal, safeguarding, and discipline panels. Whittam is also a member of the European Professional Club Rugby Judicial Panel and World Rugby Judicial Panel.
Whittam will be in charge of overseeing certain disciplinary proceedings. And also selecting the other CDP members who have the right mix of diversity and skill sets. After they are established, the panel will start reviewing cases, replacing the present CDC, which is led by Tim O’Gorman.
The role of the CDP will be to review cases submitted to it by the Cricket Regulator. hich is in charge of overseeing and enforcing adherence to the game’s rules on behalf of the ECB. The Cricket Regulator was established in 2023 as a major recommendation of a damning study that detailed systemic disparities in cricket across gender, ethnicity, and class in England and Wales. The report was released in June of that year by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC).
Speaking on his appointment, Whittam said: “I am delighted to be appointed to this important role. It is vital to the integrity of cricket that the sport’s rules and regulations are upheld. As the first Chair of the CDP I look forward to getting the Panel up and running and ensuring that cases are dealt with promptly, in a fair, thorough and transparent manner.”