Malcolm Speed upset over Howard’s rejection
International Cricket Council on Tuesday rejected the former Australian Prime Minister John Howard as candidate for the vice president post. Howard was the candidate put forward by Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket. John Howard’s name was rejected purely because he could not get enough votes from the test playing member nations of ICC.
But the issue is not going to go down so easily it seems, Australia and New Zealand cricket boards have already expressed that they are not at all happy by the decision. Moreover, now the former ICC chief Executive Malcolm Speed has come out and said that ICC’s decision to reject Howard’s nomination is completely unacceptable. Speed who was ICC’s CEO for 7 years from 2001 to 2008, said that the nations that did not support Johan Howard’s nomination were politically motivated, he said that sports and politics should be kept separate.
Speed in a newspaper in Sydney wrote that the appointment of Howard was seen as a threat by those nations who are looking to continuously downgrade the role of international cricket council. He further added that these nations feared that if Howard would have been the man in charge they would not have been able to get their way and manipulate ICC. Speed went on to say that Howard is a man who has been a Prime Minister of a country and what can be more credible than that. He said that Australia and New Zealand’s candidate was named after a compromise between the 2 boards, which showed understanding between 2 test playing nations, but he is disappointed by the attitude shown by the rest of the member countries.
Speed continued by saying that the role of an ICC president requires someone with exceptional administrative skills which Howard has in abundance, he is a no nonsense man and probably that is what scared the countries that voted against him. He added that those people want someone who can be used for their own good, and that is totally unacceptable.
The former ICC CEO said that Australia and New Zealand should refuse to name a new candidate and instead should keep pressing for Howard, or pass it on to Pakistan and Bangladesh. The 2 Asian countries are next in line to name a candidate. Speed added that when they name their candidate then the 2 counties from down under should refuse to vote and that will serve them right.
He had number of strong opinions which just did not end, he continued by saying that ACU and NZC should make their anger known and should not back down easily.
Giles Clarke who is the Chairman of Cricket Australia and Alan Isaac the Chief of New Zealand Cricket said in a joint statement, that they are deeply disappointed, as according to them John Howard was by far the best man for the job. The 2 boards said that they strongly believe that a big post such as the president of ICC demands a man who has some good experience in that field, and who better than the former Prime Minister of Australia. The statement added that that the 2 boards expected better from their fellow nations.
Now with the statement of Malcolm Speed that followed the joint statement by ACU and NZC, it is certain that the world lobby in world of cricket is going to surface once more, and this rejection by ICC will go a long way towards determining how big decisions pan out in future. When a consensus is needed among the test playing nations it will definitely be a huge task for ICC to bring all the test playing nations to an agreement in the aftermath of this rejection.
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