'Dispensable' Ian Healy considers Cricket Australia board role

Ian Healy has confirmed he is considering a move to the Cricket Australia board in place of Michael Kasprowicz, regarding himself the most "dispensable" Queensland Cricket board member to take up a critical post with the national governing body.

As part of his job on morning radio in Brisbane for SEN, Healy said that he had been approached to be Queensland's nominee to be one of nine national directors, a move that would compel him to resign from the state association's board.

In outlining the process by which he had got so close to the position, replacing Kasprowicz after he resigned earlier this year, Healy said that both the Queensland chairman Chris Simpson and fellow director Jon Dooley were "too busy" to take up the CA board spot. Healy, a longtime commentator on cricket for Nine, has also served as president of the Australian Cricketers Association, and joined the Queensland board in 2019.

"Yes, there's been an approach to me to come onto the Cricket Australia board," Healy said. "It's nominated by Queensland, there's six states that can nominate a director. The one who is missing is Michael Kasprowicz, who stood down after 11 years. Queensland has decided to nominate me if I want to do it, I've just got to find out if I've got time.

"I am seriously considering it, I feel like I'm the most dispensable of three options on our Queensland Cricket Board, and that would mean I'd need to get off the Queensland board. We've got another two options in Chris Simpson and Jon Dooley, but they're pretty busy at the moment. I'm probably best placed out of us three at the moment, but we'll see how it goes."

Should Healy accept, he is expected to join the former New South Wales premier Mike Baird in being added to the CA board in time for its AGM on October 29. Baird is set to step down from his position as a Cricket New South Wales director to join CA, with the state's current nominee Richard Freudenstein moving sideways to an independent spot that will be left vacant by the Bendigo Bank chair Jacquie Hey, who is exiting after being part of the board since 2012. Cricket Tasmania's nominee, Paul Green, is also up for re-election this year and is expected to be retained.

While CA's own diversity targets call for 40% female representation on the board, this configuration would leave only Mel Jones (Victoria) and Michelle Tredenick (independent) among nine directors.

Earl Eddings, the current chairman of CA, has one more year to run on his current term and is constitutionally permitted to seek a second, but both Simpson and John Knox, the chairman of NSW, have made it patently clear that they wanted to bring more chair-capable directors onto the board, while also strengthening links between the CA board and those of the states.

In Healy and Baird, Queensland and NSW would have a pair of CA directors with deep connections to their respective states.