 |
|
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: |  |
|
Cricket Australia cultural reviews to be released on Monday
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25059800/cricket-australia-cultural-reviews-released-monday
| Quote: | ...
The reviews, which will feature a fresh charter for the behaviour of Australian cricketers on the field, are expected to be highly critical of CA's organisational "arrogance" in recent years, and will be unveiled by the CA chairman David Peever and fellow director Jacquie Hey after his re-election at the AGM on Thursday.
Particular focus is set to be placed on the Don Argus-led review of 2011, which recommended the addition of performance-based pay to the contracting system, the setting of clear goals for Australia to be No. 1 in all three formats of the game, and the appointment of the team performance manager Pat Howard as a "single point of accountability" for team performance.
... |
|
|
|
|
 |
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
'WTF moment': Sutherland reveals ball-tampering feelings
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/wtf-moment-sutherland-reveals-ball-tampering-feelings-20181026-p50c1j.html
Okay, that article seems simply to be 'stealing' from cricinfo's interview, so go straight to the source:
James Sutherland reveals his Newlands scandal regret
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25078073/james-sutherland-reveals-newlands-scandal-regret
| Quote: |
Departing Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland has revealed his regret that the Newlands ball tampering scandal may not have played out so disastrously ... had he been able to intervene earlier in the affair.
Sutherland famously turned off the TV in his Melbourne home before the broadcast showed evidence that Bancroft had used a foreign object to try to change the ball's condition...
... It was not until about 3am the following morning, after the press conference had taken place, that Sutherland was spoken to about events in South Africa. In this the episode echoed others where Sutherland was unable to be directly involved, including the 2013 suspensions of four players for not doing "homework" for then coach Mickey Arthur in India, an event that led to his replacement by Darren Lehmann.
"At a guess it would've been about midnight I suppose [that I turned the TV off] but, yeah, I wish I was watching, absolutely. It was a serious WTF moment there," Sutherland told ESPNcricinfo. "I'd like to think that my judgment and possibly influence would have meant that the media conference would have gone slightly differently.
"As we know, that was part of the penalty and the severity of the penalty, was to some extent related or at least was consequential in terms of how that was handled - not telling the truth, or not telling the whole truth.
"No doubt that homework thing, if I'd been anywhere near that, it would have been a different outcome. I'd like to think in some cases where things have gone awry that that's true. You can't be everywhere."
... |
[We are promised that we'll be able to read the full interview "next week". We breathlessly await.]
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Cricket Australia reviews 'confronting', says ex-captain Taylor
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/cricket-australia-reviews-confronting-says-ex-captain-taylor-20181028-p50ch5.html
| Quote: | ...
"I have seen the review. It will be hard hitting, confronting for CA and for anyone who loves the game of cricket," Taylor told Channel Nine.
"Everything is on the table."
On Friday, CA chairman David Peever said after the body's annual general meeting that there had been no delay in releasing the findings.
The Australian Cricketers' Association said CA had missed an opportunity by not having the findings available at the AGM.
Peever was re-elected chairman at the AGM and the ACA wanted state associations to have a copy of the findings beforehand, so they could make a more informed decision on whether he should stay at the helm.
Taylor defended the decision to go ahead with the election before the findings were known.
"The CA constitution still allows the states and territories to get together if they think a change is need at a board level, me included, whether at AGM or any time after," he said.
"They are well within their rights under the constitution to do so."
... |
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
CA failures 'contributed to ball tampering scandal', review finds
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/ca-failures-contributed-to-ball-tampering-scandal-review-finds-20181028-p50ci8.html
| Quote: |
Failures in Cricket Australia contributed to the ball tampering scandal in South Africa, a review into the game has found, raising grounds for the reduction in the penalties handed to Steve Smith and David Warner.
CA have been slammed as "arrogant" and out of touch by the authors of a report commissioned to examine the game after the crisis at Newlands.
...
Fairfax Media understands The Ethics Centre has found there was strong systemic and organisational input to the events at Newlands, which is likely to drive calls for Smith and Warner to be allowed to come back earlier.
...
Among the key recommendations put forward by Simon Longstaff's review team is the creation of an ethics commission to look at the governance of the game, and the establishment of a cricket council to discuss major issues in Australian cricket.
This council will include representatives from CA and the states.
The review exposes a disconnect between the CA board and stakeholders in the game at how Jolimont lives up to its values and ethics. Fairfax Media understands there was a significant discrepancy between responses from directors and others in the sport.
... |
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Arrogant and controlling: Cultural reviews damn Cricket Australia
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/arrogant-and-controlling-cultural-reviews-damn-cricket-australia-20181006-p5086t.html
| Quote: | ...
The long-awaited reports - redacted in parts - into CA's culture ... found the sport's administrators were just as much to blame for the ball-tampering scandal and ugly events which sent the game into crisis during the tour of South Africa in March.
...
In a damning 145-page report by Longstaff and his team, CA has been accused of consistently not living up to its "values and principles", while there were "multiple instances of disrespect running through CA", including an example of bullying that allegedly was "swept under the carpet".
"The most common description of CA is as 'arrogant' and 'controlling'. The core complaint is that the organisation does not respect anyone other than its own. Players feel that they are treated as commodities. There is a feeling amongst some state and territory associations that they are patronised while sponsors believe their value is defined solely in transactional terms," the report said.
One unnamed response declared that: "CA does not handle situations well when it goes against them. They revert to bully tactics or worse, ostracising! We now need a strong board with a commitment to a way of being that is unimpeachable, that we can be proud of", while an unnamed CA staff member said "we are obsessed with being No.1 but it's fool's gold".
...
CA has also been urged to conduct a major review of its high-performance unit - Howard is leaving next year - and encouraged to have anyone associated with the high-performance unit banned from taking part in industrial negotiations with players. Howard had been criticised for his involvement.
...
CA chairman David Peever said the governing body had already made changes.
"It has been a difficult and confronting time for everyone involved in Australian cricket and, for that, I am sorry. Mistakes have been made, lessons have been learnt, and changes are will continue to take place," he said.
... |
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Taylor should replace Peever as CA chairman: Speed
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/taylor-should-replace-peever-as-ca-chairman-speed-20181030-p50cv5.html
| Quote: | ...
“David is the first (chairman) to have come out of the corporate world rather than out of the cricket world and I think in this crisis that’s what’s shown here,” Speed told ABC radio.
...
“I’d like to see Mark Taylor stand up as chairman of Cricket Australia. He’s on the board, he’s been there for quite a long time and there is a bit of an outcry that the whole of the board must go, I don’t agree with that, there are some very good people on that board who work hard, who have good judgment.”
...
“It’s good to see some diversity on the board - some women, some people who aren’t from the cricket family so to speak - but I think that’s missing at the moment, that the dyed-in-the-wool cricket people need to stand up and take back their sport.”
While Speed agreed that the Ethics Centre review equated to “bad news” for CA, he didn’t agree with all of its findings.
“A couple of things struck me as quite strange. Firstly, that the candidates for captaincy should have extra lessons in moral courage. Now, if I had said to the captains I dealt with, people like Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting and before them Allan Border, that they needed lessons in moral courage, that would’ve been a very short conversation, I can tell you that ... they were never short of moral courage,” Speed said.
“The other thing that struck me is the direction that the selectors are now to take into account character when they’re picking the Australian cricket team as well as ability. That’s happened from the start of Australian cricket. It’s a major feature of what the selectors do so there are parts of the report that I think are naive.”
|
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
New findings must see player suspensions lifted: ACA
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/new-findings-must-see-player-suspensions-lifted-aca-20181030-p50csw.html
| Quote: |
The Australian Cricketers Association has not ruled out contemplating legal action should its submission fail to lift the suspensions of the three Australian cricketers who were banned for their involvement in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa.
...
The ACA will table an official submission to the Cricket Australia board by close of business on Thursday.
...
The ACA insisted the findings of the Longstaff report, released by CA on Monday, were "new and significant" - that being CA was also partly to blame for the heightened tensions that led to the ball scuffing in Cape Town - and must prompt a rethink of the suspensions.
...
Nicholson said all options, including heading to the courts, would be considered if the submission for a rehearing failed. Potential court action could fall under restraint of trade.
...
The push to cut the bans has split the cricketing world. While former Test greats, including Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne and former coach Darren Lehmann want the bans lifted, former batsman Simon Katich says they must be upheld.
|
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Failure of leadership, Peever's position 'untenable'
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25121288/failure-leadership-peever-position-untenable
"Here is a selection of the media reaction."
Samples from: G. Baum (The Age), T. Holmes (ABC), P. Smith (The Australian), G. Haigh (The Australian), S. Perry (The Guardian), R. Craddock (News Corp).
| P. Smith wrote: | Peever could not middle any delivery aimed at knowing why he is still in charge of the sport when even the most sympathetic interpretation of good governance would demand he step away. The review by The Ethics Centre identified what was essentially a cultural cesspool. Deaf to advice, irrational abhorrence to defeat, crass and offensive behaviour, barely a trace of respect between officials and players. Peever, as chairman, and others within Cricket Australia, had to accept responsibility because they failed hopelessly to show appropriate leadership.
|
| G. Haigh wrote: | In a corporate model, there are external agents, such as regulators, such as institutions, such as government. Chairs resign; boards reconstitute; executives get fired, and even have bonuses clawed back. At Jolimont, somehow, a small elite award themselves promotions, new terms, fat benefits, cheery farewells. Let's not forget that the only reason we have been afforded this glimpse of the degree of cricket's organisational dysfunction is because a vigilant cameraman spied a cricketer scratching a cricket ball; otherwise CA would still be stumbling along counting its millions, oblivious to the players' discomfiture and the public's discontent.
|
[Unfortunately, the article also displays a tweet from the known, confirmed serial cheater Michael Vaughan.]
Beyond cricket journos, here is the editorial of The Age:
Our cricketers can rise from the ashes
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/our-cricketers-can-rise-from-the-ashes-20181029-p50cqg.html
| Quote: | ...
But the purge is incomplete. Not only has Cricket Australia chairman David Peever failed to resign, he put himself up for re-election only days ago and was reappointed.
...
It is obviously not right that the chairman – who righteously states the three players will not be reinstated early, despite Cricket Australia’s culpability – remains when the body for which he is ultimately responsible is found so wanting.
His position is untenable, and he should resign immediately. Otherwise, he should be removed. That would nurture reasonable hope Australia’s bearers of that fabled baggy green cap can once again be revered by Australians.
... |
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Dyer speaks...
Culture wars: Players call for an Australian cricket commissioner
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/culture-wars-players-call-for-an-australian-cricket-commissioner-20181030-p50cyj.html
| Quote: |
As the fall-out of the ball-tampering saga continues, the Australian Cricketers Association has called for a new cricket charter and an independent position of Australian cricket commissioner to be introduced.
...
However, just who would fund this role was not divulged. This would fill a similar role to the new cricket ethics commission recommended by Longstaff, which CA has endorsed.
...
"This report details a corporate culture that is as bad as I have seen in my 30 years in the commercial world," he said.
...
"I have some concerns about some of the rhetoric that was used through the course of yesterday," Dyer said.
...
"We have been willing to submit ourselves to mediation and to sit with CA for mediation process for a long time now. We have been at the mediation table, if you like, for 18 months. It has been a lonely existence," Dyer said.
... |
Roberts speaks...
'I take responsibility': Roberts pledges to drive CA cultural change
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/i-take-responsibility-roberts-pledges-to-drive-ca-cultural-change-20181030-p50cye.html
| Quote: | ...
One state association employee accused a senior manager at CA of not only sweeping under the carpet an instance of bullying but also promoting the alleged perpetrator.
...
"I'm not suggesting it was off the mark, I think the feedback provided is real for them. I'm suggesting in some cases one person's experience might have been quite different to the experiences of a lot of other people," Roberts said.
...
Roberts accepts it is fair for the public to question how he can be part of the solution when he was part of the administration that received an unfavourable review, but said CA had also achieved much good in the form of attendance and participation numbers and a record TV deal.
...
"In this circumstance, it might seem a simple solution for people to say 'a bunch of executives or others should lose their jobs', it's a lot more complex than that. We need a broader perspective."
...
|
And Brettig comments...
Review gives CA Board more than it bargained for
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25124198/review-gives-ca-board-more-bargained-for
| Quote: |
It's often said, in circles both corporate and sporting, that the findings of a review are seldom as important as the process by which they are reached. Should the process of the review or the credibility of the reviewer be open to question, then the document itself falls over.
...
Cursory glances of the website of the Ethics Centre ... showed that the two organisations shared a Board director in common, Michelle Tredenick. And only a handful of background checks were required to discover that Peter Collins, facilitator of the Australian men's team review to be led by the former Test opening batsman Rick McCosker, had been a paid leadership consultant of CA for years.
...
[C]ynicism about their conception was written all over the remarkably low response rate of current players to the reviews - some 24% as opposed to the 94% response rate from the CA Board itself. Presumably the missing 6% belonged to Bob Every, among whose many reasons for resigning as a Board director was the choice of the Ethics Centre to conduct the review.
What is now clear about the organisational review in particular is that by the time interim updates began rolling in, as required by the terms of reference set out by CA, they quickly demonstrated that this would be, by the governing body's own euphemistic terms, "challenging" and "confronting". While the chief executive James Sutherland made his decision to quit after 17 years and give 12 months' notice without any advance sighter of the review, his precise departure date would have been clarified by what CA would be dealing with in terms of its rollout. Similarly, the team performance chief Pat Howard's intentions not to seek a contract renewal began to filter into wider circles the closer its release date crept.
...
In the aftermath of the review's release, and Peever's wooden attempts to explain its findings, there lurked the strong sense of a chapter being closed. CA's directors, largely present for the release press conference, seem intent on sailing on to summer without looking back any further.
But that would be to reckon without the many findings and statements of the review itself, which will be harder to sidestep than any press conference question.
...
Ethics, however, had long since been left behind. Sutherland, an honourable if not always publicly polished operator, had for some years been managing an increasingly large and capricious collection of executives, many of whom had designs on his job. Equally, the Board, no longer composed of state delegates from the six associations, was comprised instead of a collection of corporate figures of varying levels of accomplishment...
...
CA did not reckon with the possibility that the Longstaff and McCosker reviews would do as they have - returned the Australian cricket public to a state of disbelief akin to that of April. Accountability, so ardently espoused by Argus, must run upwards as well as downwards.
...
"In some respects, this is a 'sign of the times'. In general, standards of personal responsibility are lower than in times past e.g. when Government Ministers accepted responsibility for the conduct of their Departments. This is first and foremost a matter for individuals; under what circumstances will they accept and declare personal responsibility. It is the age-old question of cricket … are the leaders of the game like the batsman or batswoman who outsources responsibility to the umpire or do they take their cue from the fielder whose integrity is their own?"
What does that passage sound like, other than a thinly-veiled call for senior heads to roll? Australian cricket has thus been left with a review that all but calls for the removal of CA's leadership, and no discernible indication that the Board accepts this finding. Longstaff and McCosker have sought a level of credibility in their findings that was not readily discernible at the time they were commissioned, leaving CA's leaders looking the other way while the public renews its rage. It is not a pretty picture.
|
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Peever resigns as chairman of Cricket Australia
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/peever-set-to-resign-as-chairman-of-cricket-australia-20181101-p50dfb.html
"Earl Eddings is his temporary replacement as interim chairman. ...
It technically required four of the six states to remove Peever at an extraordinary general meeting but in the end it did not come to that as Peever fell on his sword."
[The updated article states: "A phone call from Cricket NSW chairman John Knox to David Peever on Thursday triggered the resignation... Knox, the chief executive of Credit Suisse Australia, had expressed his dissatisfaction at a regular meeting of the Cricket NSW board on Tuesday night and his fellow directors agreed unanimously with him."]
cricinfo's corresponding article:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25140621/david-peever-quits-cricket-australia-chairman
Baum's comment:
Peever, caught in slips
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/peever-caught-in-slips-20181101-p50dhg.html
| Quote: | ...
He stone-walled for three years, then, as the required run rate rose, got himself into an ungainly tangle. Finally, he saw that the game was up, and retired, hurting.
Of course, his reign was more nuanced than that. He brought to the job solid corporate credentials, though his CV was in some ways a lily gilded. He was a shy man, not really suited to such a public position.
...
If the shop was not seen to be closed then, it was three weeks ago, when Peever manouevred to have himself re-elected for another three-year term, which has few precedents, before the so-called Longstaff report had come down.
It was the sort of mis-timing that reverberates up the bat handle and through a batsman’s being. You didn’t even have to know what process was to see that this was an abuse.
...
Who’s next? The popular clamour is for Mark Taylor, but he is a business lightweight.
...
|
Brettig's video comment:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/video/clip?id=25142108
Update 1:
Taylor has ruled himself out: https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/taylor-out-of-running-to-be-new-ca-chairman-20181102-p50dle.html
| Quote: | ...
... Taylor recently signed a three-year deal to remain with ... Channel Nine, despite the network losing the rights to broadcast the home summer of cricket. He remains a prominent cricketing voice for the network, understood to pocket about $200,000 annually.
“Given my media role, I don’t believe being chairman would be appropriate,” Taylor told Wide World of Sports.
... |
Update 2:
Bob Every is interested: https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/revealed-peever-opponent-emerges-as-ca-chairman-candidate-20181102-p50dle.html
| Quote: | ...
However, it's understood the hopes of Every, 73, could be dashed by a little-known International Cricket Council ruling which allegedly states that it cannot have anyone aged over 70 appear on its key committees. The CA chairman would have a prominent role with the international governing body.
... |
|
|
|
|
|
K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
|
| Post subject: | |
|
Mark Nicholas:
Respect and responsibility must be the core around which the game revolves
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25140885/respect-responsibility-core-which-game-revolves
| Quote: |
Precious little in cricket today could be more extraordinary than the self-flagellation taking place in Australia.
...
All this at the beginning of a week that followed David Warner walking off the field during the early part of his innings for Randwick-Petersham in a club match last Saturday afternoon.
...
Cricket comes from the soul, and historically, because of this, cricketers take care of their own and of their game. ... The spirit of cricket is everything, for it is an easy game to treat anywhere from lightly to with contempt; and too often it is just as easy to escape censure.
...
Thinking back now to Cape Town, and the madness, one cannot help but wonder if there was something masochistic in the actions of the Australian players, as if living with the reputation of unpleasantness had become too great a burden; like an adulterer who can no longer live the lie but has not the strength to admit the deception and instead simply gets caught in order to admit guilt and start over.
...
Equally, all cricketers are tempted to take the main chance - as they have seen it taken by those before them - and at times are guilty of developing it too far. This certainly applies to ball-tampering, an act that comes in many guises. The English, for example, might scoff at the use of sandpaper on the ball but may quietly pick the seam or suck a mint that leads to saliva that helps the ball to shine and, hopefully, swing.
...
The 145-page Ethics Centre report commissioned by Cricket Australia in the wake of Cape Town is hard-hitting but mainly well balanced. Effectively, it blames much of what has gone wrong with Australian cricket of late on a win-at-all-costs mentality prompted by >CA's over-zealous pursuit of commercial reward and a misguided perception of national approval.
...
The surprise in the report is that the ball-tampering incident is not specifically addressed in a way that tells us anything we did not already know. Given it was the root problem of the fallout, and prompted condemnation from the Australian prime minister, among others, it might well have been a case of the current players closing ranks in the face of such public outrage. It is revealing that only 24% of them contributed.
...
This must make for painful reading, especially for Sutherland, who is a thoroughly decent man and driven by traditional values. Somehow these stopped applying to his organisation. Perhaps he took his eye off the ball; all cricketers know just how destructive a mistake that can be. Probably he stayed in the job a little too long and the new wave had riders that went by him.
...
Now that Peever has gone, Taylor would be a good choice to take his seat. The seat is ready for a cricket person.
...
Of course, it is the Australians who are taking a beating, but people in glass houses and all that... The greatest value in this report will be its wide publication and therefore the reach of its message. Greed had overtaken common sense in cricket's order of things: everything is for money and much less is for love. There is hardly a governing body in the world not guilty of taking this wonderful game down a less than wonderful path.
...
Cricket has survived because it is an incredibly special game, and a reflection of life. Its phrases and nuances are to be found everywhere we look and listen. It is both a simple and complicated game that suits all sizes and shapes, majorities and minorities. It does high and low like no other, with the capacity to lift its players to the clouds and dump them in the gutter in the same over. In a split moment, the taking of a fine catch will match the reflected glory of a long-fought-for hundred, or 25 overs of blood-and-sweat bowling that results in wresting control of a potentially doomed situation. But cricket is not to be messed with, for it has the habit of making those that do so pay the heaviest price.
... |
[Comment: Nicholas's article seems to be a mix of good and bad. Some of his statements seem fanciful. His interpretation of the low player response is that they were closing ranks; Brettig's interpretation is that the players viewed the reviews with cynicism, as perhaps a pre-ordained marketing exercise by CA. If they wanted to close ranks, they could still have replied, ignoring whichever questions they wanted to ignore and not saying anything they didn't want to say. They could have used their replies as an opportunity to dump on CA. The cynicism interpretation therefore seems more plausible.]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
|
The Rules
FAQ
Usergroups
Calendar
Search
Log in
Register
