What a farce. As usual, power politics and petty self interest have won the day. I liked this quote from Malcolm Speed (yes, the same Malcolm Speed who was sent on “gardening leave” because he ruffled too many feathers in the wake of Pakistan’s forfeiture of a Test).
“Howard has been rejected because his appointment would provide ICC with strong leadership that would thwart the ambitions of several current administrators to downgrade and devalue the role of the ICC,” Speed wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“Howard would have stood in their path. The role requires strength of character – a leader, diplomat, statesman and politician. The ICC board is as political as any political party. The countries that voted him down want a compliant figurehead who will do their bidding.”
I think Australia should really ruffle some feathers and nominate Andrew Symonds for the post, but in all seriousness, if they don’t decide to boycott the process (which they should) they could do much worse than Mark Taylor. He has proved the pick of the former captains in his post cricket career. He would bring a great cricket brain and a love of the game, and the BCCI certainly couldn’t criticise his cricketing credentials!
There will no doubt be lots of coverage of this on Cricinfo, and you can already read Sambit Bal’s editorial here, but something tells me the fallout of from this isn’t over, not by a long shot.
