Cricket gets the chance this week to radically reinvent itself. Sadly, it's a chance that is likely to be put down.

The chance will come in the form of a review of the International Cricket Council's structures.

Lord Harry Woolf, a serious legal heavyweight in Britain, has been poring over ICC documents and talking to ICC people, the important ones and the not so important.

He has been helped by some clever types from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

With all the hard work since August now done, Woolf will start to deliver his findings from tomorrow.

He is expected to clarify how the ICC and its committees can function more effectively, make the nomination of the president less contentious and allow for membership criteria to be more inclusive than it is now with the test-playing nations dominating.

Some of his recommendations are likely to send the hidebound among the ICC mandarins running for cover. Graeme Smith, for one, would like them not to.

"As players we look forward to the review being given strong consideration by the ICC board," said Smith, who urged the ICC to make the review public in the interests of accountability and transparency.

If it were up to Smith and the ICC's outgoing CEO, Haroon Lorgat, that would happen.

"We truly aspire to be a well-managed and leading global governing body," said Lorgat of an organisation that asked Woolf for the help.

Lord Woolf promised "a thorough and transparent" investigation that would draw on experiences and good practices from within and outside cricket.

Smith's anticipation of the Woolf review was carefully crafted. He said it was important for the ICC to be respected by all, including the players. It was not clear if he believed the contrary was currently the case.

While much of Smith's reaction was obscure - possibly deliberately so - he hinted that players did not think much of the game's leadership.

He said the Woolf review would be a "wonderful opportunity for the ICC to finetune its leadership structure to ensure that the ICC adjusts to the ever-changing business of cricket".

The head of the South African Players' Association, Tony Irish, said he hoped the review would lead to a structure which promoted "the good of the global game" rather than benefiting one, or a few, countries.

The one country Irish may have been referring to is the elephant in the room: India. The Board of Control for Cricket in India, and its friends - South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh - will have enough clout to turn their collective noses up at some of the reforms offered by Woolf.

That would be a pity. Cricket's governance has been notoriously weak and restructuring is long overdue. Associate members are treated like second-class citizens and the ICC board, dominated by the chairmen of the 10 test-playing nations, needs some independent thinkers. Come to think of it, so could Cricket South Africa's board.

It seems that the ICC will agree to a new leadership structure where a full-time chairman works more closely with the CEO and the role of president becomes ceremonial.

That would end some of the squabbling. For the rest, there will be more horse-trading than at the annual yearling sales. Hopefully, the game won't be trampled in the process.