Cricket Australia should be blown up.
Put Ian Chappell in charge of cricket in Australia.
speak of the devil
https://www.msn.com/en-au/sport/cri...ing-review-release/ar-BBP2MHm?ocid=spartanntp
Former Australian captain Ian Chappell says it’s “ridiculous” players are the only victims of the ball-tampering scandal, following the release of a damning report that describes Cricket Australia as “arrogant” and “controlling.”
The Australian Cricketers Association is once again calling for the suspensions handed to Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft to be re-examined, after the Longstaff review recommended “the leadership of CA accept its share of responsibility for the circumstances that gave rise to the ball-tampering incident.”
While CA chairman David Peever has ruled out any softening of the bans, Chappell says those in charge need to be personally responsible.
“If people in administration don’t pay the price it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Chappell told
Wide World of Sports.
“If it was fair, the players would get the opportunity to hand out the punishments to the administrators, but unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.
“I wouldn’t blame the players if they’re very angry that Smith, Warner and Bancroft have been suspended but no administrator is getting any punishment.”
The report also noted that CA had lost sight of the fact cricket is a sport, not a business. Chappell, one of the driving forces behind the game becoming more professional with the establishment of World Series Cricket in 1977, says the balance has gone too far in favour of business.
“I think it’s one of the problems with professional sport, and having been involved in cricket going more professional than what it was, I didn’t envisage that business would take over cricket as much as it has,” the former skipper said.
“You can’t apply a lot of the business principles to sport. It’s a game. The fact that the bottom line pretty much rules every decision is very disappointing.”
Chappell’s view is shared by another former skipper, and CA board member, Mark Taylor, who says the governing body needs to be mindful of the distinction between sport and business.
“I liked the subtle difference (in the report) of not using ‘winning at all costs’ but rather ‘winning without counting the cost’, because to me that’s a better analogy,” Taylor told
Wide World of Sports.
“It tells me that at CA we’ve become almost like a corporation, and I think the cricket community is saying ‘it’s gone too far, it’s too much business and not enough cricket’.
“We’ve got to turn the dial back a bit. All of us around the board table love the game, but we’re being told to think a little bit more about the cricket and less about the business.”
With the culture of CA being severely criticised, questions remain about the appointment of an “insider” taking over as CEO following the resignation of long-time boss James Sutherland.
Kevin Roberts, who was in charge of the protracted and acrimonious pay negotiations between the players and the governing body last year, has succeeded Sutherland in the top job, and Taylor has defended the decision to appoint an administrator already associated with the culture that has been so heavily questioned.
“That’s a decision the board has to make, and it’s probably the most important decision you make,” he said.
“When we made the appointment of Kevin Roberts as our CEO we looked both within and outside the organisation, and he was the best man for the job, and that’s all you can do.
“People can have their own opinion about whether he should come from within or outside CA, but Kevin has a mandate through this review to make change. You could argue he’s seen CA as it was before the review, now he’s got a very good road-map to make changes.”
Despite the prominence being given to the reports, and the time and effort spent compiling them, Chappell isn’t optimistic they’ll result in a significant change.
“Reviews, I don’t have a lot of faith in them,” he said.
“I didn’t have much faith that the reviews were going to do much. And from what I’ve gathered so far, it hasn’t told me anything you couldn’t work out from spending a bit of time around the game.”
