The ICC’s decision to send Malcolm Speed off to tend to his garden for his last couple of months as CEO has hardly met with a wave of approval. While Speed had his critics, the move is seen as unnecessary muscle-flexing and score-settling by those who run the game but shoulder little of the responsibility when things go wrong.
In the New Zealand Herald, Dylan Cleaver pulls no punches, describing them as “too many small men with large egos who have too much at stake”. He added:
“Only Speed's family would describe his stewardship as flawless but he was at least trying to force an endgame in the thorny issue of Zimbabwe. But trying to out those who run the game there cost him his job. Go figure.”
The Guardian reported that Speed “was known to have grown increasingly uncomfortable with what he considered Mali’s policy of protection for Zimbabwe Cricket, an organisation that has become politicised by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF regime”.
“English and Australian officials are known to be increasingly despondent with the ICC’s failure to demand reform of Zimbabwe Cricket but Chingoka has been able to count on the support of Mali, the South Africa board, Kenya, an associate member, as well as India. Speed leaves after a stormy tenure which ultimately left him disillusioned with an organisation dominated by an Asian bloc that many believe has become close to ungovernable.”
The Age said Australia’s administrators were weary with the ICC’s failure to address the Zimbabwe issue.
"One senior cricket figure, who did not want to be named, said it was sad that Speed had stood up for a principle and paid for it with his job. It exposes the naked politics at play around the ICC board table and the deep divisions in the game. The relationship between Speed and acting ICC president Ray Mali is said to have deteriorated beyond repair when Mali lobbied for the suppression of an audit that accused Zimbabwe of 'serious financial irregularities'."
“Zimbabwe, in case it be forgotten, have not played a Test for three years, are woefully weak as a one-day team but still retain full-member rights at the ICC. If you want to talk about sport, and not politics or morals or theft or the sins of old empire, what the hell are Zimbabwe doing there? The ICC chose to do nothing except lose a chief executive. Who knows who may be next? But it will be somebody because Zimbabwe gets them all.”
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