Oz players tell Cricket Australia Board members to sack themselves

MELBOURNE - Australian cricketers have asked the cricket board to resign in the wake of the Ashes debacle, and have called for an independent commission to run the game.

Cricket Australia chairman Jack Clarke is consulting governance experts as part of a major review, which will report in October, and did not rule out the possibility of a commission.

The ACA said the game’s anachronistic governance structure was “fundamentally flawed”.

It wants the century-old structure of the 14-man board, with an uneven number of delegates from the six states, replaced by a high-powered body made up of leaders in their fields, The Australian reports.

Reflecting the views of current and former players, ACA chief executive Paul Marsh said an independent commission was essential for Australia to regain its premier place in world cricket.

“The structure of Australian cricket’s governance model is fundamentally flawed,” Marsh said, also highlighting problems with the game’s development pathway and high-performance regime.

Mostly former players will conduct a separate review of the Ashes failure, unrelated to governance.

“You’ve got a situation where directors of the Cricket Australia board also have to be directors of their respective state boards. This produces an unavoidable conflict of interest, where directors have responsibilities to CA and their state associations,” Marsh said.

“Directors are put in positions where they have to make decisions which may be good for one of their boards but not the other. Over time there are always going to be conflicts between what’s best for Australian cricket and what’s best for their state,” he said. (ANI)