Cricket Australia (CA) today announced the steps it will take to implement Australian Team Performance Review recommendations. First, Cricket Australia will immediately recruit a new senior management position, General Manager Team Performance as its first response to today’s Australian Team Performance Review (ATPR) report. The role, reporting to CA’s CEO, will be responsible for the team, coaching, selection, the Centre of Excellence and working closely with state cricket performance and talent managers. The appointee will also be responsible for women’s high performance cricket. The role will have an absolute focus on elite performance and alignment of CA and state high performance goals. The appointee will work alongside General Manager Operations Michael Brown, who will continue to be responsible for scheduling, MOU, security and anti-corruption, state and other competitions, umpires and coaches. Michael Brown will continue to be acting CA CEO on those occasions when the CEO is absent.
Second, CA will immediately start work on restructuring the national selection process to move to a five-man selection panel. It will have a full-time chairman of selectors, two independent selectors monitoring state cricket, and the Australian team captain and head coach will also on the panel. The national talent manager will not be a selector. The five will select touring squads. The selector on duty, captain and head coach will choose teams when on tour. The head selector will responsible for performance management including communication of selection policy and strategy, evaluation of and communication with individual players, including outside the national squad, co-ordination of player development plans, and succession planning.
Third, CA will move to a new coaching structure, with a head coach who is also a selector in a more elevated role with more authority and accountability than the current coach’s role. The head coach role will have a more specific role working with the COE and state associations as head of Australian cricket’s overall coaching function, leading the overall coaching strategy for Australian cricket. The head coach will spend most of his time with the Australian team. But he is likely at times to also delegate some ODI and international T20 cricket tournaments and games to assistant coaches while attending to other aspects of his national role. The head selector and head coach will both report to the new GM Team Performance.
Mr Clarke said Andrew Hilditch and Tim Nielsen would be welcome to apply for the restructured roles.
