Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard bid to take office as International Cricket Council vice-president has fallen through with India siding with other Asian and African countries to veto the appointment.
The ICC, which had all along maintained that Howard’s getting the role was a formality, announced on Wednesday that the politician’s nomination had failed to garner enough backing. “Following lengthy consideration it was recognised that the nomination put forward by Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket did not have sufficient support within the ICC board,” world cricket’s governing body said in a statement following an executive meeting in Singapore that was supposed to formalise to Howard’s election. The ICC has now directed Australia and New Zealand to re-nominate a candidate by August 31.
Interestingly though, the matter wasn’t even put to vote, as is the norm. That, according to a BCCI official, was because a majority of cricketing nations had already reached a consensus the night before.
“Six of the 10 Test-playing nations had signed a letter opposing Howard’s bid on Wednesday night,” a top board official told this newspaper on Wednesday.
Among the signees was India’s representative and BCCI president Shashank Manohar. “It was felt that Howard would not be the right person for the job due to his inexperience in cricket administration... he hasn’t even worked for Cricket Australia,” the official added.
The development is a big setback to Howard’s ambitions, not just because he lost out on the deputy spot, which is essentially a ceremonial post, but also because his chances of becoming the president in the immediate future have considerably withered. ICC vice-presidents are automatically presidents-designate. And the top job can only come after a vice-president has spent at least two years in office.
Howard’s candidacy was announced in March, but was met with resistance ever since. During his 11-year term as Australia’s premier, he had called Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan a “chucker”, supported Australian umpire Darrell Hair, who outraged Pakistan by halting a Test match and awarding victory to England, and strongly criticised Zimbabwe’s regime. The BCCI too had been against Howard’s candidature, despite the fact that Sharad Pawar, who will assume the role of ICC president from Friday, had given a tacit approval to the Australian as his deputy.
On Thursday, Howard’s only supporters were Australia, New Zealand and England, leading to speculation that cricketing world would remain split on key decisions from now on.
“That’s a pessimistic view. We’d like to think that won’t happen,” board secretary N. Srinivasan said.