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The jargon was heavy, the irony stark, and in the end Cricket Australia’s response to its own corporate failings went exactly as expected.
The long-awaited Longstaff Review delivered findings perhaps even more scathing than anticipated, but were absorbed by an organisation with little appetite for tangible change.
After re-electing its Chairman David Peever and appointing new CEO Kevin Roberts before the findings were released, Cricket Australia solidified their foundations before the storm struck.
And when the storm arrived yesterday, the only damage was rather superficial.
Peever’s performance in front of cameras on Monday was, if not for the bleak landscape it painted for a sport in need of change, almost comically ironic.
The Chairman’s claim to ‘accept responsibility’ for what happened in Cape Town, despite instigating no actual changes to hierarchy, was foretold in the Longstaff document sitting in front of everyone: ‘CA is perceived to say one thing and do another’, it said.
The very next line in the 147-page document read: ‘The most common description of CA is as “arrogant” and “controlling”.’ The review made it entirely clear that the systemic arrogance of the Australian men’s team was reflected in the corporate offices.
When asked by a journalist how that stood with him, Peever said “I am not embarrassed. I am not embarrassed at all”.
But why not? Steve Smith was, in South Africa. In fact he said it numerous times: “I am embarrassed to be sitting here”, the former captain said of his role in the ball tampering scandal. But when it was Peever’s turn, he turned on autopilot and the rhetoric flowed: “There are elements of the review we need to work on,” he conceded.
Steve Smith reacts during a press conference. (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)
When Cameron Bancroft pulled yellow sandpaper from his pocket on that fateful afternoon on March 24, the fallout was immense.
Many thought it would turn cricket in this country upside down – and for the better. But the fallout, as we have seen, stopped at the halfway point. The first half – the players themselves – were dealt with severely and swiftly by an incensed public and, following that, Cricket Australia themselves.
But the faintest scratching of the surface would reveal that the events which unfolded in Cape Town were merely the tip of the iceberg.
A culture that not so much encouraged winning as demanded it lurked beneath the surface. The arrogance that so incensed the Australian public was hardly confined to the players.
‘Responsibility for that larger picture lies with CA and not just the players held directly responsible for the appalling incidents at Newlands’, Longstaff’s review confirmed.
And it is wholly correct. After all, it wasn’t the players who created the coarse #BeatEngland hashtag during the Ashes.
It wasn’t the men in whites who concocted the thoroughly classless 4-nil hand signs that accompanied the dais after reclaiming the Ashes. And it also wasn’t our bowlers and batsmen who blindsided the Bangladesh cricket board by cancelling a tour at the last minute in May, citing a lack of ‘commercial viability’.
Cricket Australia Chairman David Peever (AAP Image/Penny Stephens)
So where’s the sorry for those? Where’s the recrimination and bans and lifetime scars to wear? Peever told us back in April that there’d been ‘enough sorries’. Yesterday he told us it’s time to ‘move on’. So that’s that, I guess.
Cricket Australia’s position to accept the Longstaff findings and, at a corporate level, continue untouched is untenable.
Peever’s position as the Chair is arguably exactly that, and Longstaff made a none-too-subtle hint that he or one of CA’s top executives should walk: ‘It is the unfortunate lot of a leader that he or she may sometimes be called upon to sacrifice themselves for the greater good…Cricket has a chance to set a better example – and in doing so, to remediate much of the harm caused by the incident at Newlands.’