Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa gave Cricket South Africa's (CSA's) members' council a week to "reconsider" its position regarding the CSA board's makeup following a joint meeting on Tuesday evening.
Mthethwa called a three-way meeting with the CSA interim board that he appointed in October last year and the members' council, South African cricket's highest decision-making body, to resolve the standoff.
This came after the two entities were deadlocked over the composition of the new CSA board, which is set to be made of majority directors and an independent chairperson, as per the judge Chris Nicholson's recommendations of 2012.
After much legal research and consultation with governance expert Michael Katz, the interim board concluded that CSA's memorandum of incorporation (MOI) needed amending before the overdue annual general meeting to lay the platform for proper governance structures for the future.
However, eight of the 14 members' council members voted against adopting changes to the MOI.
This caused an impasse that threatened to drag cricket back into the kind of crisis that plunged South African cricket into chaos last year.
CSA said in a statement after the joint meeting:
The Interim Board and the Members' Council met with the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa, this (Tuesday) evening.
The meeting was a productive one. The Minister was unequivocal on the principle of a majority independent Board and an independent Board chair.
The Minister also reconfirmed the initial mandate given to the Interim Board in October last year. He encouraged the Members' Council to reconsider its position on the structure of a future Board by no later than Tuesday, 6 April 2021.