Breaking the ice

The ICC's chief executive seems to revel in his hard man reputation. John Stern finds out what he really thinks about Zimbabwe, player power and expansion to China

Malcolm Speed: 'If all our members agreed with us all the time we'd have a fairly boring existence' © Getty Images

Speed does not seek a quiet life and he does not get one. He claims only two hobbies: golf and travelling. The problem with the former is that he has just had a hip replacement, with the latter that the one downside to his "great job" is that there is already "too much travel. It's one thing I never thought I'd say but there are too many threeor four-day trips where I spend two nights on a plane." He says he does not sleep well at night - "like most people my age"; he is in his late 50s - and work is the first thought that enters his head when he stirs in the early hours.

An hour spent in his office at Lord's is more fun than expected. Maybe this is a charm offensive from a man whose face - to many English eyes at least - has glared unyieldingly, unreasonably, uncaringly from our televisions over the past 18 months. On a window sill is a framed cartoon that first appeared in Wisden Cricket Monthly in 2002. A gunman presumably in Afghanistan is reading a newspaper that bears the headline "ICC row" and saying to his mate, "Will there never be peace in world cricket?"

So the ICC can laugh at itself. Maybe, maybe not. Two weeks earlier Speed was still walking with a crutch following his hip operation and, at an ICC business conference, had made a joke about it being a useful weapon. My flippant reference to the ECB and its chairman David Morgan brought a terse response from Speed: "We have a very good relationship with the ECB."

The offices of the ECB and ICC are no more than 200 yards apart, separated by the Lord's nursery field and, for the past year, a yawning difference of opinion over Zimbabwe. While the ECB tied itself in knots, trying desperately to decide what to think or whether to think at all, the ICC either stood firm or stuck its head in the sand depending on your point of view. Four senior officials have left or are about to leave the ECB. Morgan is still there but he seeks re-election in the autumn. Speed describes him as "a very genuine, honest person who does his best in every circumstance".

It was expected that Morgan would raise the ECB's political and moral dilemma over Zimbabwe at the ICC meeting in Auckland in March. "I had written a paper for the ICC executive board," says Speed. "And I thought I'd set out fairly where we were up to in the debate including the fact that England had added the moral issue. When we got into the meeting it became apparent that England did not wish to argue the moral issue. That surprised everyone because we'd all come along thinking this would be an interesting debate and we needed to have it."

The ECB had taken legal counsel, which advised against playing a moral or political card. An outcome of that Auckland meeting was the establishing of an ICC rule that countries who withdraw from tours can be suspended from the ICC. This threat - and the massive financial repercussions - sent the ECB running for cover. "I thought the threat of suspension was overstated in the media and towards the end of the debate it was overstated by the ECB," says Speed. "The facts were that, if England didn't undertake that tour, they would be subject to a fine of $2m. The fine could have been higher if Zimbabwe could prove they had lost more than $2m. I don't believe Zimbabwe could have proved that. There was then the risk that England was subject to suspension from the ICC. That has never happened and you would need seven or eight of the full-member countries to vote for it. I didn't think it was a realistic option that England would be suspended. You could not put it any higher than to say it was a remote possibility."

There is a perception that England are unpopular among other countries. "I think England's stance over Zimbabwe was unpopular with other cricket nations," Speed says. "Some of the things said in relation to Zimbabwe had an imperial, colonial overhang about them but I don't think it goes any further than that."

The ICC stayed out of the player dispute in Zimbabwe until it got to the embarrassing point where Australia were about to embark on a Test tour. Speed left a sports conference in Switzerland to go to Harare with the intention of meeting the ZCU. "The agreement was that I would meet the board and the players," he says. "Shortly after I arrived I was told the board had refused to meet me, which made me angry. The next day I met the players and that meeting alone justified the trip. I understand from some of the ZCU directors since then they regret not meeting me. I've been to Zimbabwe about 10 times in the last five years. I usually enjoy going there but not this time. As soon as I'd finished meeting the players I was on the next plane out of there."

'Some of the things said in relation to Zimbabwe had an imperial, colonial overhang about them but I don't think it goes any further than that' © Getty Images

One could easily miss the ICC's offices at Lord's. Behind the Compton Stand next to a gents toilet and the groundsman's equipment shed hardly seems a fitting situation for the game's global governing body. Speed attends to affairs of state from a first-floor office that is big enough for a large desk and conference table but is hardly palatial.

A move is planned. The ICC's commercial arm is based in Monaco for tax reasons, which means Speed and some of his senior colleagues are forever hopping over to Monte Carlo and back. "There are worse places to have meetings," Speed acknowledges, but it is not ideal. While seeking tax-exempt status it has been mulling over moves to Dubai or Malaysia. However, a proposal from the British government to allow international sports federations tax-exempt status in the UK has recently landed on Speed's desk. If that comes to pass, then the ICC will stay at Lord's and the high rollers will be recalled from Monaco, if enough office space can be found. It has been tempting to see the ICC's potential move away from Lord's as symbolic. Not so, says Speed. "It's appropriate that the governing body of cricket be at the home of cricket and has a close relationship with the body that is responsible for the laws of cricket [MCC]."

Speed arrived at the ICC in 2001, taking over from another Australian, the lower-profile David Richards. Speed had run Australian cricket for four years and before that Australian basketball. His reputation was as a hard-as-nails, no-bullshit lawyer. Little he has done or said since has changed or softened that reputation. Speed has sought successfully to give the ICC a status it had never previously enjoyed. He takes pride in notoriety not popularity. In a recent speech he measured the ICC's status by the fact that it had "featured on the radar of at least six Prime Ministers of cricket-playing countries".

Part of Speed's brief was to create an ICC "brand" that would be as recognisable and powerful round the cricket world as Fifa in football. More power means more responsibility which requires more resources. This is where the Champions Trophy comes in. "It is developing as a very good generator of income," says Speed. "It has grown significantly so that the cricket-playing countries make quite a lot of money from it. From that we dedicate $13m each two years to our development programme."

The problem for the ICC is that, while most people want cricket's popularity spread, they do not necessarily want to have to watch it happen. The World Cup has grown in quantity but not necessarily in quality. The last one seemed to go on forever and many of the matches were tediously one-sided. One man's missionary work is another man's empire building. Is cricket's global development about sustaining the game or about creating opportunities for the major nations to make more and more money? Probably it is a bit of both. One recent addition to the ICC family is China where, it seems, the possibilities are limitless.

"Cricket has been played in China for a long time by expatriates," says Speed. "The Asian Cricket Council has had China top of its agenda for some while and now has a commitment from the government that they will support cricket in the schools. When the Chinese commit to something they generally achieve it. That's great."

So how far can China go? "It's hard to put a time frame on it and it tends to be two steps forward and one step back when you develop a sport. But it would be great if China could be playing in World Cups as a major one-day international country, say, within 10 years. And, if we could develop a cricket culture there that would sustain Test cricket within 20 years, that would also be great. It's very hard to see it happening any quicker than that."

'We must be careful that 20-over cricket does not cannibalise the 50-over game' © Getty Images

Sometimes it seems that players want to have their cake and eat it. They complain about the volume of cricket but also complain about how much they get paid. And, if some unofficial money-spinning event crops up - like the matches at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium two years ago - they are on the plane faster than you can say burnout.

And, of course, the cricket boards want their cash from TV deals, sponsors et cetera. So what chance that the ICC's review into the structure of cricket produces serious redecoration rather than just a spot of dusting? "Players are still a bit inconsistent in their views about the volume of cricket. When we last discussed it with the captains, three said there was too much, three or four said it was about right and three said there wasn't enough. It's not a universal view among players that there's too much cricket. But everyone recognises we're just about at saturation point, which is why we're reviewing it."

In order to review the structure of the international game properly the ICC has delved into the murky and quirky business of how each country actually makes its money. He describes this process as "particularly challenging", which sounds like a euphemism. Suffice to say that accounting standards are not the same the world over. Speed utters a sheepish "no" to the question about whether this process - which is still going on - uncovered any skeletons in cupboards. He adds: "And the understanding is that we would treat that information confidentially."

The goal, he says, is "to compare apples with apples", rotten or otherwise. "If we were a bank or a car manufacturer we would have all this information. As the head office we would use it comparatively to inform how each branch of the business is doing. But we don't have any of that information. If we are going to get the countries to agree to significant change, we need to be able to show that they will benefit from it or at least that they won't be worse off. We might do something like a worldwide one-day league played over one year or two years but we need to show people that it can work for cricket and that it won't be financially detrimental."

Twenty20 cricket has not been discussed formally by the ICC board but it will be soon. "My view is that ultimately it will have a role in international cricket, though I'm not sure what that will be. We must be careful that 20-over cricket does not cannibalise the 50-over game, which generates most of the money for the game."

If Twenty20 is added to the mix, as well as the new Super Series matches between the world No. 1 country and the Rest of the World, then the workload looks to be getting heavier rather than lighter. The Super Series is a cracking idea on paper but will work only if the players selected actually show up. "You can't force someone to play in a match like this but the financial incentives are healthy to say the least," says Speed.

"They're playing the Test match for $1m, winners take all. The one-dayers are each worth $250,000 and there are match fees on top of that." Speed wanted the matches to carry official Test and ODI status but that proposal was blocked by the ICC board. He says he senses a change of heart among some countries and he hopes that by the time the Super Series takes place in October 2005 the matches will be official.

Speed knows that giving the Super Series official status will wind up the traditionalists. But that is not likely to bother him in the least.

This article was first published in the September issue of The Wisden Cricketer.
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