Cricket Australia will hold an emergency board meeting within the week as the fall-out from former Prime Minister John Howard's failed nomination to join the International Cricket Council escalated on Thursday.

On a dramatic morning, CA was awaiting the return of chief executive James Sutherland and deputy chairman Wally Edwards from the ill-fated ICC board meeting in Singapore on Wednesday where six of the 10 governing countries blocked Howard from becoming president-elect of the ICC.

Shattered chairman Jack Clarke is set to fly to London today to link up with the team during its tour of the UK. It's expected he will discuss the fallout there with counterparts at the ECB. One possibility mooted by CA was Clarke being involved in a teleconference from London with the board over the weekend.

New Zealand cricket officials, equally unhappy at the ICC developments, are expected to convene their own extraordinary meeting over the weekend.

While CA would ultimately be guided by Clarke and Sutherland, it emerged that:

* CA powerbrokers want an emergency board meeting to plot the best way forward;

* CA may consider revoking its relationship with Zimbabwe which allows for the African country's players and administrators to use facilities at CA headquarters and cricket's Centre of Excellent in Brisbane;

* The ICC faces a constitutional crisis as it clearly specifies that it was Australasia's turn under the five-region electorial process to nominate a vice-president;

* Howard's possible replacement, New Zealand's Sir John Anderson, wasn't in the best of health and had taken on other business interests since he missed out on the original Australasian nomination. He is also disliked by Zimbabwe as he attempted to expose the dubious financial dealings of Zimbabwe Cricket;

* While racist overtones have been mentioned, Howard's squeaky clean past and the fact he would have been his "own man" in exposing any questionable ICC dealings counted more against him;

* Several countries were also concerned that Howard would attempt to strengthen the ICC's power at a time when certain countries - namely India - effectively run the game.

Cricket Australia's next board meeting isn't scheduled until August 13 but key players were agitating for a high-powered meeting in Melbourne as soon as possible.

"We have to discuss this quickly and work out the best way forward," a CA source said.

CA has not ruled out renominating Howard by the August 31 deadline, with officials, at this stage, loathe to again establish a working party to find a new candidate.

South Africa, the West Indies, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the sport's most powerful board, India, did not support Howard's bid in a letter given to the ICC on Wednesday. Zimbabwe, despite orchestrating the push against Howard, did not sign the letter.

"It is clearly an outcome of politics ruling sport in some countries, a situation that Australian's view as totally unacceptable," a CA source said.

"It will be interesting to see how CA feels about continuing to assist the development of Zimbabwe cricket. We are currently involved in training their administrators and hosting coaches and players at the Centre of Excellence."

Howard, who said he had been given no official reason why his bid was blackballed, admitted the rejection could have been because of his political stance when Prime Minister in opposing rogue Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.

"All I can say in relation to Robert Mugabe is that if that is the reason I wear the negative attitude as a badge of honour because I don't apologise in any way for the criticism I offer of the Mugabe regime," Howard told Sky News on Thursday.

"If it was in some way based on past political reasons then that is a very bad precedent to be establishing for the ICC because there are serving politicians holding positions of authority within the ICC.

"I'm not criticising that but I'm just drawing attention to it."

India's objection, despite initial hopes from CA that it would support Howard, reinforced the fact that the game is now run by the Afro-Asian power bloc.

Former ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed has also weighed into the debate, declaring Howard's rejection as an "insult to Australia".

Speed believes that such is India's powerbase that the ICC headquarters will be shifted from Dubai to Mumbai within two years.