Cricket needs independent governance - Wisden

World cricket must adopt independent commissions in the vein of Australian football in order to stay relevant, the Wisden Almanack editor Scyld Berry has said.

In his editor's notes for the 2011 edition of the Almanack, Berry observed the growth of Australian Rules to outstrip cricket as Australia's national game as proof of the need for a change to outdated executive structures. The game's administrators adopted an independent commission in 1993 and have flourished into near nationwide dominance in the ensuring 18 years.

"Now the Victorian Football League is the Australian Football League, thriving nationwide and attracting young elite athletes with its average salary of $A230,000 (about £150,000), twice that of the state cricketer, and with 800 jobs available - eight times as many as in professional cricket," Berry wrote.

"The offspring has taken over the parent, because the constitution of Cricket Australia is the same as in the 19th century. In the same way the constitutions of most Test-playing countries, as well as the ICC's, are unfit for modern purpose."

Berry's words arrived at a time when Australian cricket is undergoing two reviews, one into the performance of the national team, chaired by Don Argus, and another into the administration of the game that will involve the corporate governance experts Colin Carter and David Crawford.

The governance review could result in a serious shake-up of Cricket Australia's structure, which includes an unusual arrangement at board level. As founding members, Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia each have three votes on the board, but Western Australia and Queensland receive two each, and Tasmania just one.

Crawford has a history of instigating major overhauls. Crawford was responsible for a 1992 report that brought about the creation of the AFL Commission, and in 2003 he recommended the formation of the Football Federation of Australia.

A more recent Crawford report commissioned by the Australian government suggested a review of the way funding was divided between Olympic and non-Olympic sports, and met strong opposition from the Australian Olympic Committee. Carter is the president of the Geelong Football Club and spent 15 years as an AFL commissioner.

"I don't want to pre-empt what it is going to say," Jack Clarke, the CA chairman, said when announcing the reviews in February. "The basis on which David Crawford and Colin Carter have been engaged is that they will provide a report to the board. The timing of that is not exact yet, it's up to the board then to decide which of those issues we do and do not go forward with."

Berry also pointed out the negative influence of incumbent politicians as members of national cricket boards and at the executive table of the International Cricket Council. "At the highest level of administration, politicians are taking over, which cannot be healthy," Berry wrote.

"There may be something to be said for a former politician, such as John Howard, becoming an administrator, as he tried to do in the election for the ICC presidency; but precious little for active politicians. They have too little time for the game and too many vested interests."

Former ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed has expressed similar views about the most effective future governance of the game in his recently released memoirs, Sticky Wicket.