The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

ICC candidate should be Sir John Anderson

1st February, 2010
Advertisement
Expert
1st February, 2010
19
1973 Reads
New Zealand bowler Chris Martin (2nd left) reacts after dismissing Australian batsman Andrew Symonds. AP Image/Dave Hunt

New Zealand bowler Chris Martin (2nd left) reacts after dismissing Australian batsman Andrew Symonds. AP Image/Dave Hunt

The dispute between Cricket Australia and New Zealand Cricket over the antipodean candidate for chairman of the ICC in 2012 has reached an intriguing situation where Sir Rod Eddington will chair an emergency committee of two Australians and two New Zealanders to decide on an agreed candidate.

Peter Roebuck, who has been leading the charge against the Australian candidate, John Howard, and a supporter of the New Zealander, Sir John Anderson, believes that having an Australian chairing the emergency committee will assure the selection of the former Prime Minister of Australia.

Roebuck further argues that Sir John Anderson, who been a chairman of NZ Cricket and has been on the ICC Board for some years, is far and away the best candidate.

Most impartial observers will agree with this.

John Howard was a long term Prime Minister and there is no doubt that he could handle the politics of world cricket. He has some baggage, though, in that he was an advocate of sporting contacts with apartheid South Africa, a policy at odds with the policies of the West Indian countries and the nations on the sub-continent.

Given this, it is ironic that John Howard represents an acceptance of the ruling group that dominates Indian cricket, a faction Cricket Australia is keen to work with.

Sir John Anderson, on the other hand, is known to be uncomfortable with the way this faction has manipulated world and Indian cricket.

Advertisement

If possible, he would be in favour of reigning in the interests of the Indian faction for the greater good of cricket around the world. One example of unacceptable behaviour, for instance, is the refusal of the IPL franchises to give contracts to Pakistani cricketers.

In the best of all worlds, Sir John Anderson would be endorsed as the antipodean candidate.

The fact that Cricket Australia refuses to do the right thing by him is yet another indication of the shabby treatment over the decades of New Zealand cricket by the Australian cricket authorities.

Victor Trumper played some memorable innings in New Zealand before the First World War but Australia did not play Test cricket against New Zealand until 1946. And then there was a break of a couple of decades before the next Tests.

As a consequence, great New Zealand players like Martin Donnelly, Bert Sutcliffe and John Reid (the first John Reid) never had a chance of playing against Australia.

Don Bradman never played in New Zealand, although he was dismissed cheaply by the great New Zealand fast bowler Jack Cowie when a New Zealand team in the 1930s played South Australia on their way from England where they had played several Tests.

England played Test cricket against New Zealand regularly from the 1930s onwards, while Australia refused to do so. Walter Hammond, in fact, scored his then world record Test inning of 336 against New Zealand at Christchurch in the 1930s.

Advertisement

The help given to Australian rugby by the NZRU for over 100 years compared with the lack of help given by cricket authorities in Australia to cricket in New Zealand makes for sad reading.

The NZRU virtually kept rugby viable in Australia after The Split of 1907. Even as late as the 1970s, the NZRU paid for a touring Wallaby side to be outfitted at their expense when this cost was deemed to be too much for the ARU to cover.

The result of the NZRU’s generosity of money and spirit is a vibrant rivalry betwen New Zealand and Australian rugby sides that expresses itself in the commercially successful Bledisloe Cup rivalry and Super Rugby, the best provincial rugby tournament in the world, in my opinion.

This brings us back to Sir John Eddington and the decision he has to make.

Nothing can make up for the mistakes of the past. Once an arrow leaves the bow it is gone.

But a decision to annoint Sir John Anderson, because he is the best candidate, will be a sign that Cricket Australia is prepared to do the right thing in its important relationship with New Zealand cricket.

close