Daily Record. Co.uk

5 July 2010

Chart-topping singer Annie Lennox and campaigning comedian Mark Thomas are to speak at this year’s Festival of Politics.

The former Eurythmics star will be making a return visit to the event – which is held annually at Holyrood – to talk about her SING Campaign, which uses music to educate people about the threat of HIV and Aids in South Africa.

She will also be joining comedian Mark Thomas, who has been nominated for a Perrier Award, and Martin Bell, the BBC journalist who became an independent MP, for a discussion session on how people who are not professional politicians can still exert influence.

Ms Lennox said she was “really looking forward to coming back to Edinburgh during the week of the Festival of Politics”.

And she said she would be taking part in “some very stimulating and interesting events”.

Another high-profile speaker at this year’s event will be former deputy prime minister John Prescott, with the Labour man discussing his life in politics.

Tory Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who has served as both defence secretary and foreign secretary, will lead a debate on the idea of a just war and peace and security in modern society.

Meanwhile Des Browne, who was defence secretary in the last Labour government, will join up with former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell and David Coltart, Zimbabwe’s minister for education, sport arts and culture, to discuss the role Scotland could play in conflict mediation.

And with the sixth Festival of Politics taking place in a World Cup year, there will also be a debate on the future of Scottish football, which will be broadcast live on the Real Radio football phone in.

Holyrood Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson said: “The dynamic nature of politics and the constantly developing relationship between politicians, political institutions and the public will lie at the heart of the 2010 Festival of Politics, under the over-arching theme of changing politics.”

He continued: “Over the last five years, the festival, together with the excellent World Press Photo exhibition, has welcomed more than 175,000 visitors to the Scottish Parliament.

“This proves that whilst politics may be changing, people remain keen to engage with it.

“The Parliament is looking forward to opening its doors once again and welcoming audiences to the 2010 Festival of Politics. We have another interesting, imaginative and thought-provoking programme which I hope the public will enjoy.”

The Festival of Politics is held from August 17 to 21.

Sunday News

4 July 2010

Sunday News Reporter

GOVERNMENT is deliberating on a policy that is aimed at luring Science, Mathematics and English teachers after it emerged that most schools in the country are now enlisting the services of unqualified teachers owing to the critical shortage of skilled personnel in these areas, a cabinet minister has confirmed.
The shortage of teachers in Mathematics, English and all subjects that fall under the umbrella of science, is due to the great demand in neighbouring countries that has greatly crippled the pride of the country’s education system.
The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, told Sunday News in an interview that Government was not just sitting on its laurels watching the free fall of the education system but was deliberating on measures that could be put in place to stem the exodus of teachers of those critical subjects, as well as trying to map strategies to lure those that have left the country.
“It is true that we have a shortage of the teachers for those subjects whose importance in the academic curricula needs no emphasis. That most schools are employing the services of unqualified teachers is equally true as there is no other option.
“Government is however not happy and is not just watching but we are trying to put in place a policy to stop the exodus of teachers as well as luring those that have left the country,” he said.
Although he could not highlight what measures Government was going to put in place he said his ministry was intent on doing everything with the limited resources to ensure quality education is offered in the country’s schools.
He lamented the lack of financial resources as the major setback in the Government plans — saying the situation where the teachers were getting less than soldiers was not healthy to the education sector.
He was however quick to point out that Government’s efforts were being strangled by the poor remuneration that the teachers were getting.
“We have a saddening situation where teachers are paid less than soldiers. That is not very healthy and as a ministry we have been pushing Government about the issue of teachers’ remuneration, which is poor and remains a challenge in our efforts of breathing life into the slowly diminishing education system.
“The issue of salaries remains the major concern and we will not go far with our efforts if the issue of salaries is not sorted out to the satisfaction of the teachers,” he added.
He said his ministry was going to disburse this month 13 million textbooks sourced under the Education Transition Fund to primary schools in the country’s ten provinces.
Sen Coltart further stated that a secondary school textbook programme was on the cards adding that the programme was put on board after the realisation by his ministry that there was a critical shortage of relevant reading material in most of the country’s schools and aimed to have a 1:1 pupil-book ratio in schools.
The country embarked on a re-engagement exercise last year with the hope of getting back teachers who have left the profession for greener pastures but the exercise bore little fruit, as the process was tedious and frustrating with some teachers spending the better part of some terms without getting paid.

Sunday News

4 July 2010

By Vincent Gono

ABOUT 110 000 out of a total of 338 000 students failed to register for the Ordinary and Advanced levels November examinations and the possibility of the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council (Zimsec) allowing them to sit for examinations without paying is very slim as Government owes the examination board US$5 million in unpaid examination fees.

In an interview with the Sunday News last Thursday, the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Senator David Coltart, said his ministry was working together with Zimsec to try and have underprivileged candidates sit for examinations under the Basic Education Assistance Model (BEAM)’s estimated US$1,8 million set aside for assisting needy candidates.
He said his ministry was still working on the number of candidates who can be assisted by the fund.
However, fears are that the Beam amount is insufficient to register the 110 000 Ordinary and Advanced levels candidates who failed to register for this year’s examinations.
Sen Coltart said this year 210 000 candidates managed to register for the Ordinary Level November examination, an improvement from last year’s 137 000.
For the Advanced Level examination there was an improvement of 2 000 as 27 000 managed to register as compared to the 25 000 who registered last year.
“This year a total of 110 000 candidates failed to register for both their Ordinary and Advanced levels November examinations. We are, however, working with Zimsec to try and bail out all those students who are underprivileged and could not afford to register through the Beam fund. An estimated figure of US$1,8 million will be put aside to assist the underprivileged.
“I do not have the figures with me right here. We are still working out as of how many children can be assisted under the Beam fund,” he said.
He reiterated that it was Government’s desire to enable all the Ordinary and Advanced levels candidates to write their examinations, adding that although there was a slight improvement in the figures of those who managed to register this year compared to last year a lot still needed to be done to put back on track the education system of the country.
He said despite the slight improvement, government still had a long way to go in reviving the slowly but surely collapsing education system that was once the envy of many.
In an a telephone interview on the Beam fund, the Minister of Labour and Social Services, Ms Paurina Mpariwa, said out of the US$15 million that was reserved for secondary schools US$1,8m would be used for examination fees.
She said the fund was meant to benefit vulnerable children who could not afford to register, adding that a selection committee was put on the ground to select and assess the vulnerability and then approve the child for assistance.
She said it was too early for people to conclude that the amount set aside was inadequate, adding that people should not rush to discredit Government.
“Of the US$15 million that is meant to assist secondary schoolchildren under Beam we have put aside US$1,8 million for examination fees. It is meant for the vulnerable children only and the same conditions of application apply when one is applying for the fees to be covered by Beam.
“There are teams that will be doing the selection and the assessment to see to it that only those who deserve to be assisted benefit from the fund. I think it is too early to rush to the conclusion that the amount set aside is inadequate since it has not yet been exhausted. The money will not be in the form of hard currency but will be transferred to the relevant authority through the bank,” she said.
A source from Zimsec, however, said Government should settle its US$5 million debt with the examination board, arguing that Zimsec was only legally enforcing what the Government had deliberated on and put in place.
“As Zimsec we are not there to try and make life difficult for anyone. We want all the students eligible to write their examinations provided they pay the fees that was agreed and approved by cabinet. We do not know how they are going to make last year’s candidates, who were allowed to sit for their examinations pay. All we want is our money and we are saying if they are trying to talk us into allowing those that cannot pay to write we are afraid we are not going to agree,” said the source at Zimsec.
Last year the Government allowed students to sit for public examination without paying registration fees on the understanding that the fees would be paid later but some parents reneged on the promise to pay and Zimsec is now pressing hard on the Government to pay the US$5 million it is owed in unpaid examination fees from last year.
The payment of the debt seems to be shrouded in a mist of conjecture and dispute with Minister Coltart saying the money will be released by Treasury while the Minister of Finance, Mr Tendai Biti, has been quoted saying examination issues were the responsibility of the education ministry which can only be allocated funds through the national budget.
Sen Coltart, however, said the Government had not shifted from its yesteryear position that makes it mandatory for children to be accorded a decent education, adding that his ministry was doing everything with the available little resources to ensure underprivileged students get the necessary assistance.

Sydney Morning Herald

By Gideon Haigh

July 4, 2010

John Howard, a political manipulator, fell foul of cricket’s political manipulations.

India’s cricket board is auditing the hotel and limousine receipts of its cleverest young administrator. Australia is about to play a Test series against Pakistan in England. Zimbabwe has a sports minister from the Movement for Democratic Change.

Spot the connection between these three news items and you probably spend too much time thinking about cricket. But you may also have read during the week that six member boards of the International Cricket Council have opposed the ascension to its presidency of Australia’s second-longest serving PM, in which all the foregoing are factors.

You remember John Howard, don’t you? That’s right, the off-spinner. Well, it was the turn of Australia and New Zealand to nominate a new ICC vice-president, who would after two years become president for a further two years.

Australia asked him. He was up for it. New Zealand had an excellent candidate too. His name was Sir John Anderson. By a committee on which both countries were represented, Howard was chosen – not quite the end of the story, but close to it.

Now, Howard’s appointment may look a little odd. He may be the first bowler in history to deliver a yorker at the wrong end. But he wrangled a veritable freak show of a cabinet for 11 years when Kevin Rudd couldn’t manage it for three, which implies some organisational acumen. The ICC, too, is nothing if not a political organisation, of which Howard has seen probably rather too many.

Anyway, Nelson Mandela was busy being a nonagenarian, Al Gore was probably having a massage, and . . . well, for heaven’s sake, it’s a body set up to organise games of cricket, not bring peace to the Middle East, or answer the Schleswig-Holstein question.

Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket expected that, as is customary, their prerogative of choosing a nominee would be respected – and, believe me, this job has been held by some total plonkers.

Early indications were that all would be well. That changed, first a little, then a lot, albeit that nobody was quite clear on the reasons. When Howard asked why Cricket South Africa was hostile, its chairman Mtutuzeli Nyoka replied: ”I can’t tell you.”

The personalities who mattered most were those of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, without whose say-so nothing to do with the game now takes place.

Overwhelmingly the largest contributor to global cricket income, India has turned the game upside down with an annual Twenty20 tournament, the Indian Premier League, over which the ICC has no jurisdiction despite it steadily eating international cricket’s lunch.

Yet India, as those who spend too much time thinking about cricket will know, has in the past three months turned into a fever-swamp of corruption, intrigue and retribution. The Indian Premier League’s high-flying cricket impresario, Lalit Modi, has fallen out with his old Board of Control for Cricket in India cronies, who only ever liked him for the great steaming piles of cash he earned them.

To provide chapter and verse would require a modest set of encyclopaedias. Suffice it to say that thinking too much about cricket has its consolations: l’affaire Modi has been a non-stop laugh riot, O. J. meets GFC, dragging in cabinet ministers, chief executives, mistresses and bikini models alike.

It reached the stage last week of forensic examination of Modi’s suitably lavish expenses. All this seems to have played a part in India’s inability to make any determination where Howard was concerned until the 11th hour – in context, the ICC was just not that big a deal.

In this vacuum, other agendas emerged. Zimbabwe, suspended from Test cricket, has an impressive new Sports Minister, David Coltart, from the Movement for Democratic Change, denied the election victory it deserved in March 2008 but now forming an uneasy coalition with Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF.

Sensing an opportunity to end their isolation, and cordially detesting Howard for his role in it, Zimbabwe’s administrators were happy to destabilise his nomination, even if Coltart intervened to prevent their official opposition.

And, although we are moving into a world of shadows and mutterings, each of the other boards also had domestic reasons to assert themselves. Unable to host inbound tours for security reasons, and lumbered with a serially incompetent boss dependent on political patronage, the Pakistan Cricket Board is desperate for credibility of any kind.

Cricket South Africa, whose sport is dwarfed in cultural and political significance by rugby and soccer, would likewise benefit in countrymen’s eyes from a popular gesture of standing up to proverbially arrogant Australians.

Sri Lanka Cricket was always committed to opposing Howard, for his flippant but foolhardy remarks six years ago about the island nation’s champion Muttiah Muralitharan. It and the board of Bangladesh are also starveling bodies needing to remain the right side of India to ensure their on-going viability. The West Indies? Maybe Howard disparaged Bob Marley in someone’s hearing.

Who knows what the thinking is, of course, or even if there was thinking at all? For in all the febrile theorising last week about why countries took such exception to Howard, one obvious answer was overlooked: because they could.

Nothing hinged on their decision. The ICC could muddle along without a vice-president. For all its growing powerlessness, most of the time it could barely exist at all.

Rallying against Howard, then, was a painless sort of protest, casting its instigators as weighty men of affairs, while costing them no time, no status and, most importantly, no money: on the contrary, for men under pressure in a cricket world stripped of its former certainties, kicking sand in Australia’s face and cocking a snook at a controversial politician would have made them feel refreshingly relevant again.

They aren’t. India matters – the rest are supplicants. This was anything but a show of unity or strength. It was a confession of desperate, almost pitiful, weakness.

Gideon Haigh’s latest book is “Good Enough: The Ashes 2009.”

The Age

By Jesse Hogan and Matt Wade

July 2, 2010

THE just-retired president of the International Cricket Council has lamented its rejection of John Howard as his successor, predicting it will trigger the scrapping of the board’s rotational leadership policy.

Just over a month ago, Welshman David Morgan and the man who has now replaced him, serving Indian politician Sharad Pawar, jointly urged the 10 voting members to honour the rotation policy, with Mr Pawar predicting their call would be ”unanimously supported”.

”Once he [Mr Pawar] had committed not only to support the process but support the candidature of Mr Howard, I felt fairly confident,” Mr Morgan told The Age.

”It’s a matter of acute disappointment to me that I was unable to persuade the board to support the nomination of Mr Howard. I think he would have been a very fine vice-president and indeed president.”

The Indian media speculated that Mr Howard’s poor reputation on race-related issues was a factor and had been raised in meetings by the Indian board, but did not give examples.

Australia and New Zealand have been given until the end of August to submit a new nominee, although this has been complicated by Mr Howard’s refusal to withdraw.

”I’m not the quitting type,” Mr Howard said last night on his return from the ICC meeting. He again criticised the process, saying his nomination should have been approved ”absent of the discovery of some non-existent criminal record on my part”.

But Mr Howard’s suggestion that his criticism of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s regime could have been a factor in his snubbing was strongly rejected by Zimbabwe Cricket chairman Peter Chingoka.

Mr Chingoka told The Age suggestions of political interference were ”lies” and had been ruled out by Sports Minister David Coltart when Mr Howard and Cricket Australia chairman Jack Clarke visited Harare on a lobbying visit last week.

”Before he [Coltart] left our meeting he was very clear. He told us he had been to a cabinet meeting earlier and that he had mentioned Mr Howard’s visit to Harare to our president, Robert Mugabe, and that Robert Mugabe said that this was a cricket matter which had to be dealt with by cricket people.”

He also rejected the notion that Zimbabwe and other ICC nations were bound to back Mr Howard’s nomination. ”It is not a rubber stamp,” he said.

Despite his disappointment, Mr Howard struck a philosophical note: ”In the end what matters is the success of the greatest game mankind’s ever known.”

The Telegraph

By Nick Hoult

2 July 2010

The MCC will send a fact-finding delegation to Zimbabwe with a view to reopening cricketing links following an appeal by Andy Flower, the England coach.

Flower addressed the MCC’s world cricket committee on Thursday, in the first of a two-day meeting at Lord’s, and updated them about the political and cricketing situation in his home country of Zimbabwe.

The committee, set up four years ago, has a remit to scrutinise all aspects of the sport, especially those that pertain to the laws and the spirit of cricket.

The MCC will now speak to the British government and conduct its own research into the cricketing infrastructure of Zimbabwe with a view to sending a team there on tour.

An English side have not played in Zimbabwe since 2004 and they voluntarily pulled out of last year’s World Twenty20 when it became clear the British government would not issue the team with visas. The new coalition government’s position on sporting links with Zimbabwe is unclear and the MCC will seek Foreign Office advice on the issue before sending a delegation to Harare.

“The political situation is fractious but the one person urging us to have a look is Andy Flower and we believe greatly in his judgments,” said Tony Lewis, the chairman of the committee.

“We feel unless we start an inquiry it would be too easy to let the situation freeze. It is very difficult for more established governing bodies to make the leap but with MCC’s independence and global reach, it is easier for us to go and look, find out and recommend. We don’t run cricket but can act as Polyfilla in tricky situations.”

Zimbabwe retain full voting rights within the International Cricket Council despite their Test status lapsing four years ago. In recent months there have been several steps to reintegrate them into the mainstream with David Coltart, the Zimbabwe sports minister, holding talks with governments in New Zealand and Australia.

Zimbabwe also hope to send an A-team to Australia next year.

Newsday

By Staff Writer

2  July 2010 2010

Harare Children’s Home cannot pay school fees or staff this month. This was revealed by the treasurer Adrian Watson at the home’s 90th annual general meeting recently.

Food costs $3 000 a month for the 90 children, schooling a further $2 000 and $4 000 in salaries for the 26 staff members.

The home is also failing to pay rates, repairs, electricity and telephone bills.

“Our food bill is so low because on average we receive

$2 000 in donations which enable us to feed our children properly,” said Watson, who has been managing the home’s finances for 45 years.

“Until hyper-inflation, we had sufficient reserves to be able to survive a lean month but these were completely depleted at the end of 2008,” he said, adding that the home survived on the goodwill of individuals and various organisations.

He appealed to Education minister David Coltart, who was sympathetic but said that the ministry was financially hamstrung.

While the children at the home should benefit under government’s Better Education Assistance Module, both Roosevelt and Admiral Tait schools also require them to pay the school levy, which they were unable to do.

“Four new primary school children were turned away this term because we hadn’t paid the fees for our children for the previous term,” said chairman of the home, Victor Kufahakutane.
The Ministry of Social Welfare was expected to pay $15 per child per month but this had not been paid for years. School uniforms for children also posed more problems.

There are 90 children in the home and a further three were being fostered pending adoption. The home has admitted nine children this year, re-admitted two and discharged two.

Two senior girls have moved out, one was married at the home over the Easter weekend – the first wedding there in 90 years – and the youngest baby was reunited with her maternal aunt.

Mayoress Fikele Masunda was guest of honour as the mayor is a permanent trustee, the municipality having donated the land for the home, which was built by the Methodist Church.

ABC.net.au

By Sally Sara

1 July 2010

TONY EASTLEY: Cricket Australia says it is astounded by the rejection of John Howard for the role.

Rachel Carbonell is speaking here with Cricket Australia’s public affairs general manager Peter Young.

RACHEL CARBONELL: John Howard says he won’t be withdrawing his nomination so what now will Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket do?

PETER YOUNG: What we’ll be doing is reconvening with our respective boards. Our two chairmen have got approval from our boards to support John Howard’s nomination as the only approval they took to Singapore.

So before we discuss process or names we’ll be reconvening at a board level, we’ll then talk with each other and decide what to do moving forward.

RACHEL CARBONELL: John Howards says that this is a rejection of the two cricket boards and that those cricket boards now need to seriously think about the implications for them.

PETER YOUNG: Certainly we were, as our chairman said last night, gutted at the response. We followed the process exactly.

We’ve put up the most eminent candidate that has ever been considered for that role and we believe he is the best candidate that we can put forward.

RACHEL CARBONELL: And by that do you mean what you do in terms of what candidate is put forward or what you do in terms of the two cricket board’s actual role?

PETER YOUNG: That will be a matter for our directors and our chairmen to discuss when we meet.

RACHEL CARBONELL: Former head of New Zealand Cricket Sir John Anderson’s name’s been widely touted already, what can you say about that?

PETER YOUNG: What the two chairmen said last night was that they are not going to discuss particular names or specific process until they have had a chance to take advice from their own directors and then talk together again.

TONY EASTLEY: Cricket Australia’s Peter Young speaking to Rachel Carbonell in Melbourne.

Former Sri Lankan captain and now a member of the Sri Lankan parliament Arjuna Ranatunga says John Howard would have been good for international cricket and his nomination should have been accepted.

Mr Howard has also been praised by Zimbabwe’s sports minister.

South Asia correspondent, Sally Sara reports.

SALLY SARA: It’s not the kind of headline John Howard was hoping for.

REPORTER: And in breaking news coming in the ICC board has rejected John Howard’s nomination for the top post the ICC.

SALLY SARA: But, the former prime minister has won some support.

Retired Sri Lankan cricket captain and now member of the Sri Lankan Parliament Arjuna Ranatunga says Mr Howard would have been a good choice to protect the game.

ARJUNA RANATUNGA: I’m sure that John Howard had that capacity and the capability of developing cricket into some of the areas which has been very neglected badly.

SALLY SARA: The cricketing memories run long and deep in South Asia. Mr Ranatunga says many Sri Lankans find it hard to forgive Mr Howard for his comments in the Muralitharan chucking controversy.

ARJUNA RANATUNGA: When a prime minister of a country make a statement like that manner, it hurts.

SALLY SARA: Arjuna Ranatunga says members of the International Cricket Council need to step back and look at the big picture, instead of being caught up in petty issues.

Zimbabwe’s sports minister David Coltart has also called for restraint. He asked Zimbabwean cricket officials not to sign the letter against John Howard’s nomination.

DAVID COLTART: I asked them to formally abstain and that is what they appear to have done.

SALLY SARA: While some officials from Zimbabwe Cricket are supporters of President Mugabe and detest John Howard, the sports minister sees it the other way.

David Coltart is from the former opposition party and says John Howard deserves credit for speaking out against the Mugabe regime.

DAVID COLTART: We are very grateful there were people like John Howard in the international community who stood up and condemned these human rights abuses.

SALLY SARA: But, Mr Howard’s outspokenness has spooked some Zimbabwean cricket officials who feared he would go on a crusade against corruption and mismanagement.

The ICC has shelved an audit report into Zimbabwe Cricket for the past two years.

David Coltart has seen it, and says ironically it exonerates many of the current officials.

DAVID COLTART: So, if the world thinks that that report contains ammunition to sink the current administration of Zimbabwe Cricket, well then they have got it wrong.

SALLY SARA: The toxic mix of politics, billion dollar business, grudges and corruption has left John Howard sitting in the outer for now.

This is Sally Sara reporting for AM.

The Australian

By Malcolm Conn

1 July 2010

The Asian bloc flexed it muscles and the former PM missed out.

FOR all the misty-eyed nostalgia surrounding the Ashes, cricket is now very much a south Asian game, as John Howard has found to his detriment.

The former prime minister’s bid to become president of the International Cricket Council failed on purely racial lines, much to the embarrassment of a sport which continues to shred its scant credibility on an all too regular basis.

“The ICC usually descends into racism and nationalism over matters of substance. This time they’ve descended into racism and nationalism,” one former cricket official told me with a weary laugh.

The ICC is run by the executive board, made up of the presidents and chairmen of the so-called 10 Test-playing nations: Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies and Zimbabwe.

It is a disparate bunch divided by cultural chasms and deep-seated mistrust and mired by politics.

In the end, Howard solicited the support of only the three “white” nations, Australia, New Zealand and England. He needed seven votes to be sure of the top job, which due process and convention said should have been his for the taking months ago once he was jointly nominated by Australia and New Zealand.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India now generates up to 80 per cent of cricket’s wealth so, by and large, what India says goes. If the BCCI had supported Howard, he would have been elected, probably without objection.

In the end BCCI president Shashank Manohar, 52, was willing to embarrass his one-time mentor Sharad Pawar, the incoming ICC president, to ensure the Afro-Asia bloc held firm.

Pawar, minister for agriculture in the Indian government, publicly supported Howard last month, but the reclusive Manohar showed loyalty to the anti-colonial forces following strenuous objections from South Africa and a duplicitous Zimbabwe.

Howard’s political past caught up with him. His opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa, believing they would do more harm than good, and support for selected sanctions and travel bans against Zimbabwe’s Mugabe regime, which included Zimbabwe Cricket president Peter Chingoka, were held against him.

Australia’s central aim for nominating Howard was to bring good governance to the ICC and give cricket a broader standing on the world stage.

The ICC is not interested in good governance, as it showed by sacking its previous chief executive, Malcolm Speed, for attempting to bring Zimbabwe to account.

Zimbabwe, supported by South Africa, led the charge against Speed and have done the same against Howard.

The ICC seems more interested in centralising power in India than expanding the game.

Led by objections from India, the ICC has refused the opportunity to take the game truly global by making it an Olympic sport via the hugely popular Twenty20 format.

Regardless of what impression will be generated during this summer’s highly anticipated Ashes series, the biggest and most important cricket contest in the world is not Australia versus England but India versus Pakistan, when their governments let them play each other. Greg Chappell, who spent a fraught time as India coach a few years ago, described India-Pakistan as the Ashes multiplied by 10.

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have 1.5 billion people, almost a quarter of the world’s population and unlike Australia and England, where football codes are the dominant sports, cricket on the subcontinent is somewhere between a religion and a national obsession.

It is fitting that this week’s series of ICC meetings, which finishes today with the largely ceremonial annual meeting, is being held in the Raffles City Convention Centre adjacent to Raffles Hotel, a bastion of colonialism. The resentment of colonialism hangs thickly in the air at ICC meetings.

The convention centre is where London won its 2012 Olympic bid after days of high-powered wheeling and dealing. ICC cocktail parties and dinners have ensured the same is taking place this week on a smaller but no less frantic scale.

Have a late night drink in a hotel bar with ICC delegates and the resentment against Australia and England eventually begins to ooze out from the non-white countries which now dominate cricket.

The very white Imperial Cricket Council was formed in 1909 by Australia, England and South Africa. Even when South Africa was eventually kicked out in the early 1970s for its apartheid selection policies, Australia and England ran what was by then called the International Cricket Conference as a fiefdom with a condescending and elitist view towards all other cricketing nations.

How the world has changed with the rise and rise of India’s now overwhelming economic power over the past decade.

Zimbabwe’s stance has frustrated attempts by its sports minister, impressive human rights lawyer and long-time Mugabe opponent David Coltart, to rebuild cricket ties. “One can hardly normalise relations with New Zealand Cricket and Cricket Australia if our first act is going to be to stand in the way of their preferred choice. Zimbabwe Cricket understand that,” Coltart told The Australian after a recent visit to both countries.

Given the way the fractious ICC has behaved over Howard suggests that sadly, this is normal cricket relations.

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.