The Cricket Australia Board today released the independent organisational review, which it voluntarily commissioned following the incident in Cape Town earlier in the year.
Prior to this, Australia Men's Test Captain, Tim Paine and Josh Hazlewood, released the players' pact, the outcome of the player review which was commissioned at the same time as the organisational review, and will be adhered to by all contracted players within Australian cricket.
The full review, led by Simon Longstaff from non-profit educational advisory firm, The Ethics Centre is available here
The summary of recommendations, along with implementation status, and Players' Pact, is available here
On release of the review, Cricket Australia Chairman, David Peever said:
At Cricket Australia our purpose is to unite and inspire communities through cricket.
There's no doubt that the ball-tampering incident in South Africa was extremely regrettable and caused distress across our country.
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 and will continue to take place.
Our response to the ball tampering incident was necessarily tough, and we acted swiftly and decisively. At the same time, we voluntarily commissioned an independent organisational review into Australian cricket and launched, concurrently, a player review to establish a renewed behavioural charter.
To help restore faith in what we do, today CA is releasing the review in full and publishing the players' pact.
The organisational review, carried out by non-profit education and advisory firm, The Ethics Centre, is a summary of the views of 469 people representing a 58 per cent response rate. This included current and past players, CA and state and territory cricket associations, employees and board members, the Australian Cricketers' Association, umpires, sponsors and media.
While at times difficult to read and in some instances, difficult to agree with what has been implied – CA respects the findings of the review and what needs to be done to restore faith and prompt change.
The review includes various assessments that inform 42 recommendations, and CA is already well advanced in some areas with more than half of the recommendations in development or already implemented before we commissioned the review.
Having considered the recommendations, CA is committing to enacting and exploring further the recommendations and actioning where appropriate.
The players review has resulted in a meaningful players' pact, which is available here. This project was carried out by Rick McCosker, with support from Peter Collins, George Bailey, Pat Cummins, Rachael Haynes, Tim Paine, Justin Langer and Shane Watson.
It's important to note the Argus Report of 2011 into high performance has been diligently applied, however the opportunity for us all today is to ensure a greater focus on the game's ethos and the spirit of cricket.
Our love of cricket is in our blood. That's why today is an important step to continue to move cricket forward. We'll continue to work with, and listen to employees, fans, players, partners and volunteers, to ensure we all shape Australian Cricket in a way that everyone can be proud of – with a unity of purpose like never before.
We can't change the past, but we can mould the future of cricket in this country and ensure cricket remains Australia's favourite sport, and a sport for all Australians.
