CA pushing Earl Eddings for chair as Aaron Finch admits turmoil’s toll

Aaron Finch has admitted cricket’s off-field turmoil isn’t helping the side arrest their dramatic slide in the ODI world rankings.

Australia coach Justin Langer talks to Travis Head at a training session in Adelaide in preparation for tomorrow’s ODI against South Africa. Picture: AAP

Australia’s one-day captain Aaron Finch has admitted cricket’s off-field turmoil isn’t helping the side arrest their dramatic slide to No 6 in the ODI world rankings.

After so much bloodletting, Cricket Australia is moving to appoint a chairman with cricket in their veins.

The CA board wants to elevate interim chair Earl Eddings, a former first-grade player in Melbourne and local club president, to replace David Peever, who resigned last Thursday amid the fallout from the Longstaff review.

The bid to promote Eddings comes with the national team desperate to break the run of seven straight losses in the second ODI of the summer against South Africa in Adelaide today, Finch said the Australians need to block out the outside noise.

“When we talk about confidence in the batting group, it’s about not letting outside distractions affect your game and there has been a lot of media about Cricket Australia,” Finch said in Adelaide yesterday.

“There’s a lot of media about our batting, but I think if you can put that to one side and focus on the next ball and really make sure that you’re committed to watching the ball and being 100 per cent committed to your partnership, I think that will go a long way to turning things around quickly.”

The push for Eddings’ elevation has been put to the states but the proposal has received a lukewarm response from at least one member association with some believing the board should wait until it appoints replacements for Peever and Mark Taylor.

The CA board doesn’t need the approval of the states but is taking a consultative approach. If CA succeeds in appointing 50-year-old Eddings to the chairmanship then that will indeed be a quick turnaround. The game’s guardians are keen to get people talking about cricket again — not culture, reviews and the widely condemned ideas of “elite mateship” and “elite honesty” now the season has started in earnest.

Eddings is a cricket person. He played for Northcote in Melbourne in the late 1980s and early 90s before crossing to North Melbourne. Former Australia swing bowler Adam Dale played with Eddings at Northcote and North Melbourne.

“He’s a fantastic person and it’d be great for the game if that was the case,” Dale said yesterday after being told of the strong talk Eddings was about to be made chairman.

“I’ve played a lot of cricket with Earl and he made a lot of runs as a top order/middle order batsman who had really good skills.

“He’s a terrific fella. A really smart guy. Good values. He was a long-serving committee man who played a significant role at North Melbourne.”

Eddings knows something about cricket revivals: North Melbourne (now the Greenvale Kangaroos) credit him with turning the club around in the early 90s.

“North had been rooted to the foot of the table for many years when Earl transferred from Northcote looking to revive his career, following his friend Adam Dale, who had done so the previous year,” the club’s website states.

“Earl was an astute player and aided the club both on and off the field by recruiting players. Earl both captained and coached the club during his playing days before becoming president in 2003.”

Eddings is the managing director of risk management consultancy the Riskcom Group and has a strong business background.

A director at Cricket Victoria from 2006-15, he became a CA director in 2008 and remained after changes to the board’s structure in 2012 when it was streamlined from 14 members to six plus three independents. As a member of Peever’s board, Eddings brings baggage from the old regime, but some continuity might be welcome after all the tumult at Jolimont since the ball-tampering fiasco in March.

Director Mark Taylor resigned from the board on Monday. The board met in Melbourne that day and has continued to talk via phone hook-up in a series of meetings as the bloodletting moved to the executive level. High-performance chief Pat Howard and head of broadcast Ben Amarfio were dismissed on Wednesday.

New chief executive Kevin Roberts has talked up CA’s intent to reconnect with its neglected grassroots, so on the face of it Eddings might be the right man for these troubled times.

He might be a cricket man, but there’s a cautionary tale in that Peever was also a more than capable club player in Brisbane grade ranks.

Eddings’ term as director ends at the 2019 AGM, but he could, like Peever attempted to, seek an extension for another three years.