Taking an indirect swipe at the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for failing to endorse his candidacy for the post of vice-president of the International Cricket Council (ICC), former Australian prime minister Johan Howard has said: "there is a problem with the administration of cricket in some parts of the cricketing world."

"I hasten to say not Australia - I think the cricket administration in Australia is very good. I think there is a problem in parts of the Indian subcontinent and clearly there is a problem in Zimbabwe, which is not entirely unrelated to the circumstances affecting me," he added.

He also records an invaluable lesson he learnt when his older brother Wal wasn't elected captain of the church cricket team.

"This was because he took it for granted, owing to his seniority, that he would be elected," Howard wrote.

"He had not bothered to organise his numbers. I thought the decision of the team was most unfair, and it left me feeling upset and angry for weeks. It taught me a lesson about ballots which I have never forgotten," he adds.