CA needs to implement substantial improvements to restore standards: Roebuck

SYDNEY - Noted cricket commentator Peter Roebuck has urged Cricket Australia to instigate an independent review of all cricketing bodies in the country to bring the game back to glory.

“Cricket Australia needs to implement substantial improvements in the domestic game in an attempt to restore standards. Australian cricket is in trouble primarily because it has taken its strength for granted. It’s not a cycle, it’s a decline,” Roebuck wrote in his syndicated column for the Sydney Morning Herald.

“Across the board, Australian cricket is in trouble. In the words of one player, Shield cricket has become “little more than a preparation for the Twenty20 campaign. IPL contracts are the main talking point”. As much can be told from the ditching of proven players in favour of those better suited to the shorter version.”

“Whatever the outcome of the one-day series, Australian cricket remains in urgent need of surgery. Not even a decisive victory will be sufficient to give the patient a clean bill of health,” he added.

Roebuck also reckons that the problem crept in when the supply of great cricketers ran out, and the production line was exposed.

“Australia’s deterioration did not happen overnight. It has been a creeping decline covered for years by the brilliance of the national side. Although Australians long ago stopped measuring themselves against England, a heavy Ashes defeat ought to give the entire community pause for thought,” Roebuck said.

“The time has come to stop protecting patches, and to start rebuilding the pyramid,” he added. (ANI)