CA chief quits after tampering outcry

SYDNEY: Cricket Australia (CA) chairman David Peever quit Thursday after coming under intense pressure over a ball-tampering scandal which has triggered an exodus of senior figures and long bans for three players.

The former Rio Tinto mining executive was only voted in for a new three-year term last week, days before a scathing independent review sparked by the cheating row slammed the governing body.

Calls have been mounting for Peever to go after it emerged that the CA-commissioned report was not provided to the country’s state associations before he was re-elected.He was also widely criticised after an interview this week in which he referred to the ball-tampering affair, which rattled the sport and caused an outcry among the Australian public, as a “hiccup”. “Cricket Australia has today confirmed that David Peever has announced his resignation as chairman of the board of Cricket Australia, effective immediately,” the governing body said in a statement.

His deputy Earl Eddings was appointed as interim chairman and said: “We have a way to go to earn back the trust of the cricket community.” The review by the Sydney-based Ethics Centre blasted CA’s conduct leading up to the tampering incident in March, when players were caught using sandpaper to alter the ball at a Test match in Cape Town. It found that an “arrogant” and “controlling” culture within the governing body contributed to players, who existed in a “gilded bubble”, cheating in the pursuit of victory.

The document also included complaints that there was a bullying culture in elite men’s cricket. It made 42 recommendations, including establishing an anti-harassment code to stop sledging and training to improve team leaders’ “moral courage”. Peever had until now kept his job despite the exit of CA chief executive James Sutherland, coach Darren Lehmann and team performance boss Pat Howard. Then-captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner were banned for 12 months, and batsman Cameron Bancroft for nine months for their roles in the incident.