Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket have been asked to suggest a new candidate to lead the ICC after the sport’s world governing body rejected their nomination of John Howard, the former Prime Minister of Australia.
It is the turn of the Antipodean countries to propose a candidate to be vice-president of the ICC this year, who would become president in 2012, but Howard’s bid ran into strong opposition from the Asian and African countries at an ICC board meeting in Singapore.
Howard, a self-confessed “cricket tragic”, was Prime Minister of Australia in a Liberal-National coalition from 1996-2007, losing his seat as well as the election in a landslide defeat. He was chosen ahead of Sir John Anderson, the former chairman of New Zealand Cricket, as the nomination of Australasia to succeed Sharad Pawar, of India, as vice-president of the ICC. Pawar replaces David Morgan, the former ECB chairman, as president this week.
However, with seven votes on the board needed to support a candidate, Howard had attracted the backing only of England, as well as his nominees, and the ICC requested that another candidate be found. Six countries signed a letter on Tuesday opposing his candidacy.
During Howard’s 11-year term as Prime Minister he was strongly critical of Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe and banned his team from touring the country in 2007. Although Howard attempted to smooth relations with the board of Zimbabwe Cricket last week, he was unable to persuade India and the other Asian nations that he was an acceptable candidate. Sri Lanka is believed still to be harbouring a grievance that Howard had openly criticised the bowling action of Muttiah Muralitharan, their star spin bowler. There were also concerns that he had no experience of cricket administration.
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Malcolm Speed, the former chief executive of the ICC, said that Zimbabwe was being hypocritical. Zimbabwe has previously called for countries to separate cricket and politics. “Their position now is that Howard is not qualified because he is a politician and has criticised Zimbabwe,” Speed said. “They bring politics back into it when it suits them. I think the behaviour of Zimbabwe and South Africa supporting them has been outrageous.”
Jack Clarke and Alan Isaac, the chairmen of the Australian and New Zealand boards respectively, who may now be candidates themselves if Anderson’s name is not automatically thrown into the ring, said in a joint statement that they were “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
“We nominated Mr Howard as he possesses significant leadership and administrative skills,” they said. “We believe cricket needs to continue to seek excellence and dispassionate independence in the game’s global governance. We were delighted that the most senior world figure ever considered for this role agreed to accept the nomination. We remain convinced it is reasonable for his nomination to be supported by the ICC executive board and we are deeply disappointed by the position taken.”