The Marylebone Cricket Club, cricket’s law-making body, will have actor and comedian Stephen Fry as its new full-time president later in the year. The Englishman will replace existing MCC president Clare Connor upon the end of her tenure on October 1.
Fry, a member of the MCC since 2011, had been nominated for the next president’s role by Connor herself, as she identified the actor-turned-administrator as the right candidate to fulfil the job requirements.
“I am honoured and proud to be nominated as the next President of MCC,”
“It is a club that is known throughout the world for what it represents in the game and to be gifted the opportunity to perform this role is truly humbling.
I thank Clare for this incredible opportunity and I look forward to supporting her as President Designate over the summer before commencing my own innings in the autumn.”
said the 64-year-old in an MCC release, having been a lifelong criket supporter and the patron of the MCC Foundation.
Fry, who delivered a famous MCC Cowdrey lecture last year, has an interesting background. Acting in multiple English films, he is also a screenwriter, author, playwriter, poet, journalist, comedian, television presenter and movie director.
In a multi-dimensional life, he has also been championing the cause for mental health treatment, being termed ‘President of Mind’ for his association with the mental health charity for over a decade now.
Fry became an MCC member in 2011 and is known widely in English cricket for his love for the sport. Last year, he became only the second non-cricketing personality to deliver the MCC Cowdrey lecture after Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2008.
In an impactful lecture, Fry covered issues with the English cricketing scene and talked with great honesty about the Azeem Rafique-Yorkshire racism case. For him, the club exuded “mephitic stink” in the way it handled the Rafique allegations against the club’s systematically racist attitude.
Fry will be MCC’s 170th president at the helm of affairs since the club’s inauguration way back in 1821. Based at Lord’s, the MCC is responsible for designing and refining cricket laws, which are adopted at the domestic and international levels by the International Cricket Council.
