Malcolm Speed, the former boss of world cricket and a past Australian chairman, says the sport is lucky to have former prime minister John Howard as a candidate for the presidency of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Howard is Cricket Australia’s (CA) preferred candidate for the position, but CA and New Zealand Cricket are at loggerheads over who will represent the Antipodes when the ICC’s vice-presidency becomes available this year.

The ICC is awaiting Australia and New Zealand to agree on their candidate.

New Zealand wants its former chairman, Sir John Anderson, to be appointed as vice-president when India’s Sharad Pawar assumes the top job.

Under ICC rules, the Antipodean vice-president would be elevated to the presidency when Pawar’s term expires in 2012.

Speed, a former chairman of the then Australian Cricket Board and a past chief executive of the ICC, said Howard was qualified for the position despite having never worked as a cricket administrator.

But he refused to split the candidates.

“I think it is a great problem for cricket to have two such extraordinarily well-qualified men to have expressed interest in the onerous task of the presidency of the ICC,” he told AAP.

Speed declined to elaborate on what strengths Howard would bring to the role.

He also declined to discuss the security issue which marred Australian cricket last weekend, when a spectator allegedly crash-tackled Pakistan’s Khalid Latif to the turf at the WACA Ground.

The man was charged, but Pakistan have called for CA to introduce stiffer security measures at venues, such as the installation of high-wire fencing.

Speed said he would prefer to leave those issues to “the people who run cricket now”.

© AAP 2012

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