NZ Cricket chairman downplays ICC chief executive call

Sir John Anderson, the chairman of New Zealand Cricket, has downplayed suggestions in today's Sydney Morning Herald that he could be the man to run the International Cricket Council when chief executive Malcolm Speed steps down next year.

Anderson, who is chief executive of the recently sold National Bank of New Zealand, has been asked to also run its buyer, the ANZ Bank's New Zealand operation.

That may be reason enough alone for the SMH report to be regarded as speculation only. According to the report, Speed said that at the end of his three-year term it had always been his intention to return to Australia and work in sport again. At one stage he had been suggested as a possible head of the Australian Football League. Earlier, Speed was chief executive of Basketball Australia.

But Anderson said Speed's contract with the ICC was recently extended by 12 months and wasn't due to be completed until 2005. Anderson, who played a key role in the ICC's rewrite of its constitution, said in an interview in Wellington's Dominion Post today that he was committed to making the integration between the two banks work and that might involve staying around for four or five years to make the takeover work. "I'm committed to make this integration work," Anderson said.