Comment: Cricket must use Tim Paine claims as a turning point

Tim Paine’s book has exposed failings at the top level of Australian cricket, which is in danger of making the same mistakes again.

Tim Paine has spotlighted the fact that even as Australia has ruled the world in cricket, it struggles to rule itself.

Cricket Australia bosses need to learn from the chastening claims in Paine’s book about his and Justin Langer’s sackings that more decisive leadership is needed.

Those running the game must accept you can’t please everybody all the time, and being decisive is better than the damage caused by kicking problems down the road.

CA needs to own decisions.

If blowback comes, then so be it, but send a message to fans, players, broadcasters and state associations that Cricket Australia is in control and calling the shots.

Paine didn’t appreciate hearing CA had withdrawn its support for him as Test captain, but he could have respected the call had the organisation given it to him straight rather than having a PR consultant take the lead.

There was to be no winners either in Langer’s demise, but letting the polarising issue drag on at least a fortnight past last year’s Ashes – and offering an insulting six-month extension – only made matters worse.

David Warner’s leadership ban could have been resolved months ago.

David Warner was given a lifetime leadership ban after the 2018 Sandpapergate scandal. Picture: AAP Image/Ben Rushton

Cricket is Australia’s biggest sport, but unfortunately when confronted with a crisis it is often at its worst.

This is not a shot at CA chief Nick Hockley and Chairman Lachlan Henderson directly, because these problems have plagued cricket’s administration long before they came to power.

It’s the organisation as a whole that needs a rethink on what it wants to stand for.

NRL and Racing supremo Peter V’Landys stands on plenty of toes, has made errors and has made many an enemy along the way, but he makes decisions, explains them, and shows his sports a way forward.

The whole leadership landscape in Australian cricket is a murky one. It has state associations tugging in different directions and a schedule that too often cannibalises itself through the summer.

But somehow, cricket needs its leaders to rise above all this.

This is a critical moment, because Australian cricket looks set to be tested like never before as issues like the explosion of Twenty20 franchise cricket and the privatisation of those leagues threatens to change the entire fabric of how cricket boards operate.

There is an urgent need for strong, proactive leadership to ensure Australia is guiding the cart and not following it.