At its 1965 annual meeting at Lord's, the Imperial Cricket Conference renamed itself the International Cricket Conference, allowing for the first time the admission of countries from outside the British Commonwealth. The change opened the door to associate membership and was the most significant administrative reform in the game since the Conference's founding in 1909.
The Imperial Cricket Conference had grown from three founder members in 1909 to seven full members by 1965 — England, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, New Zealand, India and Pakistan. The body had no permanent secretariat and met annually at Lord's.
Pressure for reform had built since the late 1950s. The MCC's secretary Billy Griffith had circulated proposals in 1963; the Australian and Indian boards had supported them; South Africa, increasingly isolated, did not block them.
The Imperial Cricket Conference had been founded in 1909 by England, Australia and South Africa as a body for Test-playing nations within the British Empire. By 1965 the Empire was largely gone. India and Pakistan were independent and had been Test members for nearly two decades; the West Indies islands were independent or about to be; New Zealand was an established Dominion; only South Africa remained as a problem.
The rename was driven primarily by the desire to admit countries outside the Commonwealth — the United States, the Netherlands, Argentina, Denmark and Bermuda were already playing organised cricket and seeking some form of international recognition. The Imperial badge had become a barrier. England's MCC, which provided the secretariat and chaired meetings, agreed to drop "Imperial" in favour of "International".
At the same meeting the new associate-member category was created. The first associate members were admitted later in 1965: the United States, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Fiji and Bermuda. Within a decade Denmark, the Netherlands, East Africa and others had joined. The associate category became the foundation for what would eventually grow, by the 21st century, into a global membership of over 100 nations.
The rename also coincided with the start of South Africa's isolation. South African membership of the ICC was tied to its membership of the Commonwealth, which it had left in 1961. The 1965 reforms left South Africa's status increasingly anomalous and would, in the 1970s, be used by the Indian and West Indian boards to push for South Africa's expulsion.
1909: Imperial Cricket Conference founded by England, Australia, South Africa.
1961: South Africa leaves Commonwealth; ICC membership becomes anomalous.
1963: Billy Griffith circulates rename proposals.
Jul 1965: Rename approved at Lord's annual meeting.
Late 1965: USA, Ceylon, Fiji and Bermuda admitted as first associate members.
1909
Imperial Cricket Conference founded.
1961
South Africa leaves the Commonwealth.
1963
Reform proposals circulated by Griffith.
15 Jul 1965
ICC renamed 'International Cricket Conference'.
Late 1965
First associate members admitted.
“We need a name that does not sound like a relic of an Empire that no longer exists.”
Associate membership grew steadily through the late 1960s and 1970s. The ICC moved towards a more independent secretariat in the 1990s and to its current Dubai headquarters in 2005. The 1965 reforms remain the founding moment of cricket as a global rather than imperial sport.
The 1965 rename was a quiet but consequential moment. It detached cricket's governance from imperial assumptions, created the structure that would let the game become genuinely global, and laid the legal groundwork for South Africa's eventual exclusion.
By 2025 the ICC counted 12 full members and over 90 associate members. The 1965 rename made all of that possible. The associate-member category in particular became the structure that allowed Afghanistan, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh and others to climb to Test status across the following decades.
England
1932-08-12
In August 1932 the MCC selectors confirmed Douglas Jardine as England's captain for the 1932-33 tour of Australia, a decision contested at the highest levels of English cricket and one that — combined with Plum Warner's appointment as tour manager — would set the conditions for the Bodyline series.
England
1934-03-21
On 21 March 1934 Douglas Jardine wrote to The Cricketer that he had 'neither the desire nor the intention' of playing in the upcoming home Ashes series. The announcement, taken as a quiet resignation, removed the architect of Bodyline from the field before Australia returned to England — a precondition Australia's Board had implicitly demanded.
England / Gloucestershire
1937-11-15
In November 1937 Wally Hammond — the leading professional batsman of his era — was accepted by MCC as an amateur, opening the door to the England captaincy he received six months later for the 1938 Ashes. The change crystallised inter-war debates about the amateur-professional divide and the unwritten rule that England's captain be amateur.