Democracy not served in the timing of the release of Cricket Australia’s culture reviews

The re-election of the Cricket Australia board before the release of critical reviews was not in the best interests of the game.

It took, by my watch, 75 seconds to re-elect the board of Cricket Australia at the MCG this week, a third of the time needed to read the audit and risk report aloud.

Three hands were perfunctorily raised at the mention of each name. Not so much democracy in action as democracy inaction.

To open his second three-year term, chairman David Peever then thanked his fellow directors, including departing Tony Harrison, although not departed Bob Every, who slated Peever’s performance as ‘sub-standard’ on resigning six months ago.

The chairman moved on to express satisfaction with the new broadcast deal with Seven/Fox (whose negotiation he disastrously intervened in), the new memorandum of understanding with the Australian Cricketers’ Association (whose negotiation he needlessly prolonged) and the winning of male and female ‘Ashes titles’.

Amid the pastries and pleasantries in the Harrison Room, one’s mind drifted back to the 10th-rate Moomba float on which a mortified Steve Smith and his colleagues had to pose after their Ashes … errrr … title … at Sydney in January.

Ah, innocent days of schadenfreude. Since then, Australia has won a single Test in six and a single one-day international in nine, slipping to fifth and sixth in those formats’ rankings respectively.

Asked later about the team’s recent record, Peever limply offered that one was only as good as one’s last performance — hardly the best-chosen cliche, as Australia had hours earlier been dismissed for 89 in a T20 international by Pakistan.

Hell, the last time Australia’s rankings sank so low, CA called it a crisis and commissioned a review. Oh yes, that reminds us ….

For there was an elephant in the room with a sandpiper hide: the parallel external reviews of CA, led by Simon Longstaff, and of the Australian cricket team, led by Rick McCosker, occasioned by what Peever glancingly referred to as the “incident in Cape Town”.

By all accounts these reviews have been substantially complete for many weeks, yet somehow not quite done, with the result that they could not be consulted by the state associations who own CA until after the annual meeting finished.

Of course, this could happen so easily.

Perhaps the photocopier was out of toner. Perhaps Bob Every sealed Peever’s stapler in jelly as a prank.

But, well, a little odd, wouldn’t you say? After all, shareholders seeking to exercise their prerogative as owners of an organisation in an informed fashion might have found an independent assessment of said organisation’s governance useful before voting.

CA is a sporting body, not an intelligence directorate, not a top secret defence contractor. Its latest slogan is: ‘It’s Your Game.’

Peever himself has told us that he is merely cricket’s “humble servant”. The public is positively gagging on unction.

But no, Peever insists that the reviews be released “properly”. And so, on Monday at 10am, your correspondent will be joining colleagues in a lockup at CA where we will peruse the reviews and be privately briefed — although not, puzzlingly, by either Messrs Longstaff or McCosker. Lloyd Pope could hardly impart more spin to his wrong ’un. Just what can these reviews say, furthermore, that is remotely significant? They land, at last, with all the doings done. The critical positions of CEO, coach, captain and vice-captain(s) have all been refilled; the directors have all been reappointed; Peever at the annual meeting foreshadowed ‘no change in the high-performance structure’.

Team performance boss Pat Howard last week foreshadowed his leaving … in basically another year when his contract expires. That’s a longer farewell tour than Steve Waugh. What with CEO James Sutherland’s one-year notice period, CA has become only slightly easier to leave than Hotel California.

Speaking of Sutherland, the annual meeting was his last day after 20 years of dark suits and uncomfortable doorstops. He is a good man, a tactful negotiator and skilled incrementalist: I realised that T20 was a revolutionary force when I saw him watching a game at the MCG without a tie.

Cricket owes him a good deal, although let’s not forget he has also done exceedingly well out of it.

In his valedictory address, Sutherland asked pardon for making some ‘personal’ remarks, which in the next breath he rendered impersonal by referring not to cricket’s meaning for him but ‘how much it means to so many Australians.’ Hard to break the habits of a lifetime, eh James?

Sutherland then offered a curious comment about the ‘romantics and nostalgics who would like it [cricket] not to change.’ Hmmmm. This from the guy with the Lord Harris quote — ‘You do well to love cricket, for it is more free from anything sordid, anything dishonourable, than any game in the world’ etc — on his office wall ….

Anyway, I would like to meet these people, these ‘romantics and nostalgics.’ I dare say they are out there somewhere. But they have bugger all influence on the running of the game. There may once have been some rheumy-eyed retrospectors in the media, but they’re long gone. After all, nothing must stand in the way of the sale.

This is one of cricket’s zombie myths: that only the forces of reaction prevent its confident surge into the streamlined, rational and beckoningly lucrative corporatist future.

It is belied by the fact that no game in the world could have changed so much in the last decade, in some ways for the better, although also in ways that have smacked of change for change’s sake.

In any case, what is a game without romance or nostalgia? Actually I’ll tell you. It is Cape Town, where all that mattered was the desperate search for the next minuscule advantage …. and not getting caught.

We must await Monday to learn what the Longstaff and McCosker reviews contain. But it’s a fair guess that they will not be fingering romance and nostalgia as two of Australian cricket’s biggest problems.

So farewell James Sutherland, with gratitude, and welcome successor Kevin Roberts, with goodwill, for all cricket has a stake in his success. But all cricket will not be convinced by a game where underinformed shareholders re-elect directors in less time than it takes to boil an egg.