At the beginning of next month Malcolm Speed, the urbane Melbourne barrister, takes over as CEO of the International Cricket Council from his fellow Australian, the hardworking David Richards.

Speed, who forsook his legal practice to become the CEO of Australian cricket, will soon discover that he has accepted a poisoned chalice.

Reporting, as he has done, to the affable Denis Rogers, chairman of the ACB, bears no relationship to the stress he will suffer trying to bring some kind of order to an ICC infected by the self-interests of disparate cricket nations.

Added to his difficulties is the dominance, in numbers, of the sub-continent countries and their refusal to agree to anything that compromises their own agendas.

He will find that he is in a job where praise is rarely given for a task well done. Criticism, much of it from lazy and ignorant minds, will be his constant companion.

I give him two years in his new position and he will be longing for the days when he was defending two-bit hoods in the Victoria Supreme Court.

Two issues arose last week to illustrate the problems facing the worthy Speed.

The first was Sir Paul Condon's ultimatum to the infamous Indian bookie, MK Gupta. Condon warned Gupta that unless he co-operated with the ICC's anti-corruption unit (ACU) by the end of July, no further action would be taken in terms of Gupta's allegations against a host of famous cricketers.

This was like warning a noisy turkey to shut up or else Christmas would be cancelled.

In the year since its appointment, the ACU has got through millions of pounds and words to no avail. Not a single case of match-fixing has been solved as a result of its efforts. In his lengthy report to the ICC, Condon claimed that corruption in cricket was rife, only to say, a few weeks later, that such instances as may have taken place this last year would have been limited to one-dayers in out-of-the-way places and the last matches in dead series - of which he has offered zero proof.

Condon sounds like a man who is trying to hang on to his job in spite of mounting evidence that the smart thing to do would be to terminate the assignment. The players in Survivor would have dispatched him long ago.

The problem is that corruption in cricket is a matter for the individual countries. The ICC can only suspend from their membership those countries who fail to tackle corruption amongst their own players. Given their structure, that will never happen, yet the ICC have no powers to do anything else.

The more Condon huffs, the clearer the message will be that he has no puff to blow away any networks of corruption. The danger is that some individual cricket boards will leave their own dirty work to him, knowing full well that he cannot deliver. The age of globalisation does not mean that centralised control is always appropriate.

The other issue that saw the ICC come under attack was that of pitch invasions. Here again, this is not a matter for rigid standards and central control.

Laws and customs differ from country to country. On the sub-continent the problem is partially solved by erecting fences round the playing areas.

On some South African grounds, contraptions have been erected to make spectator access to the playing area difficult. The angled fencing at the Wanderers and Centurion Park's moat have made it easy for a handful of stewards to repel would-be invaders.

Following the Hillsborough disaster, however, legislation in the UK makes it illegal for sporting stadiums there to prevent spectator access to playing areas.

Some have suggested the deployment of dogs. This has certainly been an effective deterrent in South Africa but is, perhaps, too stark an option for those not actually used to living in a police state.

It is loathsome for a nation brought up on a diet of the polite bobby on the beat to contemplate a pack of snarling Rottweilers patrolling the outfield at Lord's.

The Australians have passed laws making it a criminal offence to invade the pitch during the course of a match and offenders are punished quickly and severely.

It is only Down Under, however, where most of their citizens are descended from those who had a clear understanding of the powers of the law and are consequently obedient to the point of dullness.

The present noise has been provoked as much by Steve Waugh's demand that the cricket authorities must guarantee the safety of his players as by the over-exuberance of hundreds of British cricket fans.

That none of these fans would pass Lord Tebbitt's test of citizenship - "who would you support in a cricket Test between England and Pakistan?" - is irrelevant.

The fact is that no one can ever guarantee the players' safety. At best the authorities can only take reasonable precautions.

It is impossible to prevent idiots throwing things at the players.

That such perpetrators should be apprehended and punished goes without saying, but to guarantee that it cannot happen would require draconian steps wholly out of character with cricket grounds.

The English Cricket Board should tell Waugh to shut up or go home. There is a price to pay for the fame and riches of international sportsmen - it is increased exposure to all the people who pay good money to see them play.

This brings added risks that cannot be wholly prevented. The alternative is to play before empty grounds in matches arranged purely for television.

In South Africa, naartjies, or tangerines, have been traditionally used by sports crowds as missiles to demonstrate their disapproval. It is just as well for Waugh and his men that the 2003 World Cup will not be played during the naartjie season.

Ray White is a former president of the United Cricket Board of South Africa

© Raymond White