Aussie cricketers ask CA officials to resign

Australian players are the latest to join the list of growing voices demanding resignation of Cricket Australia's board in the wake of recent Ashes debacle against England.

The Australian Cricketers' Association said the game's anachronistic governance structure was "fundamentally flawed" and supporting the views of its members, chief executive Paul Marsh insisted that an independent commission was required to run cricket in the country.

"The structure of Australian cricket's governance model is fundamentally flawed," Marsh was quoted as saying in The Australian.

The ACA is keen that the century-old structure comprising of 14-member board, which is having an uneven number of delegates from the six states, to be replaced by a high-powered body made up of leaders from their fields.

"You've got a situation where directors of the Cricket Australia board also have to be directors of their respective state boards," Marsh said.

"This produces an unavoidable conflict of interest, where directors have responsibilities to CA and their state associations.

"Directors are put in positions where they have to make decisions which may be good for one of their boards but not the other. Over time there are always going to be conflicts between what's best for Australian cricket and what's best for their state," added Marsh.

Meanwhile, CA chairman Jack Clarke though did not rule out the possibility of a commission but said any change of governance would require a complete overhaul at national and state level.

"If you just put the nine wisest men or women in the world in charge they have still got the same reporting structures to the states," Clarke said.

"If a review is going to achieve anything meaningful it must look far beyond the structure of the board, it's got to look at the structure of Australian cricket.

"But we are not wedded to any structure at this stage. We are in the hands of professionals as to what options there are."

Clarke also came out in support of the role of the board structure, saying it was "not perfect but had served cricket pretty well".