ABC
July 1, 2010
Former International Cricket Council boss Malcolm Speed says world cricket’s governing body has insulted Australia and New Zealand by blocking former prime minister John Howard’s vice-presidential bid.
India, Sri Lanka, the West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa have so far given no reason for their decision to block Mr Howard’s ICC candidacy yesterday.
“I think it’s an insult to Australia and New Zealand, it shows great disrespect to those countries,” Mr Speed told ABC News Breakfast this morning.
“I think Mr Howard is entitled to feel angry.”
Mr Speed, a former head of the Australian Cricket Board, said the decision to blackball Mr Howard had been “very poorly handled”.
He said Cricket Australia was “seeking to break the mould” with Mr Howard’s application.
“They wanted a man of character and substance,” he said.
Apart from Australia and New Zealand, only England supported the move to install Mr Howard as vice-president, a move which would have seen him automatically become ICC president in 2012.
Mr Howard’s tough stance against Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and past criticism of Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralidaran as a “chucker” were believed to be key factors in the ICC’s decision.
This morning Opposition frontbencher Peter Dutton, a former junior minister under Mr Howard, described the decision as “completely unacceptable”.
“It is the normal practice that the nominee from Australia and New Zealand would be accepted,” he said.
“It is completely unacceptable that because John Howard had strong views against Robert Mugabe the [Zimbabwean] dictator that he should be locked out of this job.
“If the international cricket community wants to restore its integrity then they need to reconsider this decision. This is now, I think, a significant diplomatic and international issue.”
While Zimbabwe did not sign the rejection letter, it is understood Mr Howard’s criticism of its president Mr Mugabe, turned the country against him.
Last night Mr Howard said he had been given “no reason” for the rejection of his candidacy, which he described as “disturbing”.
“Yes, I am particularly [disappointed] as no reason has been given by those delegates who at this stage are saying that they don’t support it,” Mr Howard said.
“Under the new rules that were hammered out several years ago, unless it’s judged that the candidate doesn’t fit the job specification and that certainly wasn’t the case, or there’s some, you know, dark thing about him that’s been discovered, and that’s not the case, it should have been approved,” he added.
“It is not only quite disturbing to me, but it should also be disturbing to the cricketing organisations in both Australia and New Zealand.”
Mr Howard would not be drawn on speculation that cricket’s superpower India played a leading role in blocking his path to the ICC.
Neither would Cricket Australia’s spokesman Peter Young.
“We’re aware of a whole range of speculation but we’re not going to speculate publicly on what might be,” he said.
“We’d prefer people to actually say straight to our face what their concern is.”
But others, including cricket commentator Gideon Haigh, are not being so circumspect.
“The fact is that India controls about 80 per cent of the game’s global revenues, when it says, ‘jump,’ other countries say, ‘how high?'” he said.
“And basically they’ve decided that they can’t even be bothered with the ICC, they might as well run it all themselves.”
Mr Howard said he wore his criticisms of Mr Mugabe’s regime as a “badge of honour”.
“I have to wear that as a badge of honour because I thought it was a very bad regime,” he said.
“Although there have been improvements with the Coalition government, and we must try and make that work, the criticisms I made pre-dated those changes and they were totally justified.”
Zimbabwe’s sports minister David Coltart said some officials from Zimbabwe Cricket were supporters of Mr Mugabe and detested Mr Howard.
But he said Mr Howard deserved credit for speaking out against Mr Mugabe’s regime.
“We are very grateful there were people like John Howard in the international community who stood up and condemned these human rights abuses,” he said.
Mr Coltart said he asked Zimbabwean cricket officials not to sign the letter against John Howard’s nomination.
“I asked them to formally abstain, and that is what they appear to have done,” he said.