Wanted: A compliant figurehead

The ICC board's refusal to back John Howard as its next vice-president is a disgrace and an insult to Australia and New Zealand, the former ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed writes in the Age.

Under previous rotation systems, Australia and New Zealand have accepted nominations when they clearly had strong reservations about the candidates. They expected the same respect for their choice, instead they and Howard were insulted.

Howard has been rejected because his strong leadership would have thwarted the ambitions of several administrators to downgrade and devalue the ICC's role. The ICC board is as political as any political party. The countries that voted him down want a compliant figurehead.

Malcolm Conn in the Australian writes that Howard's political past caught up with 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.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck argues that nobody has emerged with the slightest credit from the Howard debacle.

David Leggat, writing in the New Zealand Herald, says it tells plenty about the state of Cricket Australia’s administration that it could not find a suitable cricket person for the role.

Howard's nomination should have been a rubber-stamp exercise. That it was not points to deep unease among the non-white member nations - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the West Indies, along with Zimbabwe's neighbour, South Africa - about whether Howard was a good fit for the job, and a person they could happily work with. Cricket Australia deserved no better.

In The Press Geoff Longley writes about Sir John Anderson’s improved prospects of taking the job.