Asian and African countries believed to have denied former Australian Prime Minister John Howard the vice president position of the International Cricket Council should reconsider their decision and not base it on political grounds.
Whilst the former PM needs to work on his cricketing skills, I think he would be the ideal person to take up the spot and provide the organisation with a sense of direction, which many of the third world countries feel threatened by.
John Howard is a driven man who has the ability to not only maintain but improve the ICC’s current position. Many board members are aligned to third world countries who have suffered greatly from poor governance within their own country. Their leaders have been megalomaniac individuals turning the country upside down and that’s what they think Howard will do to the ICC.
John Howard obtained the role of Australian PM for eleven years and it is believed that the refusal of his leadership position within the ICC was driven by his political stance against Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.
During his term as Prime Minister, Howard was a vocal critic of Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe. Asian and African cricketing nations believed it would be just a taste of how he would assert himself if he held a position of importance within the ICC.
“I have to wear that as a badge of honor because I thought it was a very bad regime,” Howard 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,” He continued to say.
Howard also criticised Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan’s bowling style which is believed to have added fuel to the fire in rejecting the former PM.
Personally, I think the former leader deserves an official reason or an explanation as to why he has been denied the position.
The only person who has spoken out about the refusal was an Indian board official, who blatantly suggested that, “Frankly, we did not want an outsider to meddle with the ICC”.
He continued on to say that Howard should not take the decision personally as they are looking for someone with previous cricket administrative experience.
How could you not take that personally? Essentially he is suggesting that Howard is incompetent of carrying out the vice president’s role.
Cricket Australia chairman Jack Clarke said they will continue to back John Howard as Australasia’s nominee for 31st August deadline, but it’s in the hands of New Zealand officials if they wanted to continue to fight for Howard.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has thrown his full support behind Howard labeling the ICC result as a “shocking decision”.
“He (Howard) would be fantastic,” Key stated.
“I think he’s been a tremendous leader of Australia, a great politician. He’s a great administrator and he loves his cricket … even if he can’t bowl very well from what I’ve seen on TV.”
It is Australasia’s turn to choose a candidate who will assume the position of presidency after two years. John Howard was our Australian Prime Minister for eleven years and I have no doubt that he will be competent enough to head the ICC if he is provided the opportunity.
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