Eddings walks from CA post

States stump chairman

CRICKET Australia’s board is in crisis mode with chairman Earl Eddings resigning ahead of Thursday’s annual general meeting.

Eddings withdrew his bid for a second term to head off any humiliation.

Western Australia’s board is understood to have decided it would join NSW and Queensland in opposing the long-serving director’s re-election.

With three states against him, Eddings lacked the numbers to survive.

Current director Richard Freudenstein has been elected the new chairman of Cricket Australia and will serve for a short period until a permanent replacement is found.

Freudenstein will chair the annual meeting, at which the states will have the opportunity to vote on the re-election of two directors, Lachlan Henderson and Greg Rowell.

The board had already announced a deputy chairman and anointed successor to the chairman would be named after the 2021-22 season.

Following Eddings’ resignation, that process will be accelerated, with the aim of appointing a permanent chairman by the end of the year.

Eddings said his resignation was in the best of interests of the sport.

“It is my sincere hope that following my resignation the state and territory associations can unite and work together in the best interests of cricket, allowing the focus to return to the sport ahead of the 2021-22 season” Eddings said in a statement released by Cricket Australia.

It is a disastrous situation for the board, which had originally backed his bid for another term. Two directors, however, got cold feet on the eve of the meeting.

News of WA’s defection reached the states on the east coast on Wednesday and Eddings is understood to have been contacted by that state.

The NSW board was disappointed that Eddings had not groomed a successor to take over after placing him on notice in 2019 that it had concerns about this issue.

Queensland decided recently it could not support another term, believing a change in direction was needed.

Despite the two states making their objections known the board unanimously supported Eddings’ decision to continue after he agreed to appoint a successor and stand down at an undetermined time to “ensure a smooth transition of board leadership”.

The decision caused so much angst among the states that a compromise proposal that would have seen Eddings stand down at the end of May 2022 was rejected.

The chairman subsequently lost the support of two of his own directors – Rowell and Mike Baird – a fact relayed to him this week.