Cricket Australia are currently looking for its next chief after Kevin Roberts stepped down from the post earlier this month. The Australian cricket board is presently going through a period of turmoil having this week laid off 40 staff — including batting coach Graeme Hick — in a desperate push to save $40 million next financial year.
Kevin Roberts resigned from his post after 20 months in charge. He was feeling the pressure over the handling of the coronavirus financial crisis. As of now, Nick Hockley has been appointed as interim chief as CA looks for Robert’s successor.
“One of the most important roles of the board is to appoint a CEO,” chairman Earl Eddings told reporters this week.
“And that’s our role to do that. We’ll take our time and do an extensive search here and overseas. In the meantime, we have an outstanding candidate in Nick who can run the show in the meantime. I think that’s one of the most important things as a board that we do,” he added.
Surprise candidate in race to be chief:
Former England captain Andrew Strauss could be the next CA chief. The England legend is reportedly being sounded out by influential figures in Australian cricket to take the role, senior cricket writer for The Australian Peter Lalor reports.
The news is set to draw mixed reactions from the Australians as Andrew Strauss is definitely not very popular among the fans because of his leading role for England during Ashes successes in 2005, 2009 and 2010-11.
He, however, has a good understanding of Australian grassroots cricket as well as possess management credentials. Prior to playing 100 Tests for England, Strauss played for Sydney University in 1998-99. He later returned to play two years at Manly.
After his playing career, Strauss was knighted and was appointed as the England and Wales Cricket Board’s director of cricket in 2015. He ultimately stepped down from the role in 2018 to spend more time with his wife, who died from a rare form of lung cancer later that year.
Strauss has previously acknowledged that playing cricket in Australia helped his development.
“I enjoyed the Aussie attitude to cricket,” he said. “They played an ego-driven form of the game in which admitting to weakness was akin to admitting having an affair with your brother’s wife.”