Melbourne: Refusing to nominate a candidate other than rejected John Howard, Cricket Australia on Friday decided to support New Zealand Cricket Chairman Alan Isaac for the post of ICC Vice President.
An angry CA said it believed former Prime Minister Howard was the best candidate for them so instead of making a fresh nomination they would support Isaac, whose name has been proposed by the New Zealand Board.
Both the boards were asked by the ICC to re-nominate a person by July 31 after Howard's nomination was blocked by influential Afro-Asian bloc at its Executive Board meeting in Singapore.
"Cricket Australia's Board has today re-affirmed that former Australian Prime Minister John Howard is the best candidate available for nomination for the position of Vice President of the ICC and has decided it will not consider suggesting any other names for the role," a CA statement said.
"New Zealand Cricket has proposed its chairman, eminent businessman and corporate governance practitioner, Mr Alan Isaac, for the role and CA will now support that nomination," the statement added.
The CA said its board is disappointed and most concerned by the ICC Executive Board's lack of support of Howard's nomination and regards it as completely unacceptable that no reason has been provided as to why he has not been accepted.
"We still have been given no official reason why a strongly-credentialed candidate of Mr Howard's qualification's, skill and stature was not supported," CA Chairman Jack Clarke said.
"Our Directors were today very strongly of the view that Mr Howard continues to be the best candidate CA could nominate. We are not prepared to suggest another candidate.
"Accordingly, we are pleased to support New Zealand Cricket's suggestion that Alan Isaac be nominated for the role," he added.
Howard, who describes himself as a 'cricket tragic', apparently paid the price for his political policies as six of the 10 voting nations refused to support his candidature.
He openly criticised the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe during his reign as Prime Minister and also earned the ire of Sri Lanka cricket by calling their off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan a 'chucker'. PTI
