Nick off

The chief executive of Cricket Australia steps down: Peter Lalor

Artwork by Fisher Classics

The chief executive of Cricket Australia announced today (Tuesday) he is standing down and will be gone from the game come the end of summer.

In some ways it’s barely a story but that’s a positive thing.

There’s no blood on the carpet or the hands of his usurpers, there’s no crisis that has forced the moment, and no scandal. As far as we know.

Nick Hockley has managed to fly under the radar for the length of his stewardship and will leave quietly after a period of relative stability in Australian cricket.

When we are talking about administrators you know the sport is in trouble. We didn’t talk about him all that much (he did an interview with our old pod, but I can’t find the link)

Hockley was never comfortable in public anyway. He was rarely called on to do so as his period of leadership was -Tim Paine’s and Justin Langer’s departure aside - mostly free of major conflict.

Hockley’s decision to leave has blindsided many, but if it is for the reasons presented then it is a credit to him.

Too many stay in jobs like that for too long.

Not enough people set themselves a task, complete it and move on, but that is the sense of what has happened here.

There will be, sigh, a search of the globe for his replacement. Perhaps they’ll scour the planets too. They’ll almost certainly find the right person behind the couch, but you can’t start a search there because, you know, there’s money to be made, processes to be adhered to, hungry consultants who could do with some cash.

Big Bash chief Alastair Dobson is an early favourite, he has earned a lot of respect for the job he has done in recent years fixing up that product and has a good relationship with the key stakeholders in that area (who are mostly the same mob across all the formats). He is intelligent, energetic and respected.

Former WACA CEO Christina Matthews is available and considered by many to be one of the best administrators in the business _ John Inverarity and the West Australian brat pack aside. She has been a candidate before, but was never a favourite of the boy’s club that ran the shop in Melbourne or WA.

As good as she is, Christina challenges people and mostly directors etc love a comfortable, unchallenged existence.

Todd Greenberg at the Australian Cricketers Association is another favoured candidate. Good operator, respected, fleet footed and likeable he has been talked about as a potential CEO since arriving from another sport.

Greenberg and Hockley worked closely together and both need to take credit for the improved circumstances between players and administrators.

The circumstances surrounding Hockley’s departure from the job stand in sharp contrast to the exit of his predecessor, and the series of events that led to him accepting the full time role in 2020.

What a time that was. Kevin Roberts had been appointed under controversial circumstances. Many believe he was not the candidate favoured by the, sigh, firm which had been paid silly money to search the globe for a suitable person only to discover him sitting in the next office down the hall.

Then chair David MOU Peever and his offsider/successor Earl Eddings were close to Roberts, a man who was presumably qualified to do the job, but who had a torrid, brief, time in it.

That was, to borrow a phrase from the Outlaw Josef Wales, a “time of blood and dying” in Australian cricket. The Rio Tinto inspired MOU dispute, the sandpaper scandal, the culture review, Covid and a score of other bin fires burned across those years.

There was a stench to the place.

Great time for journalists. Bad time for the sport.

Roberts last days were chaos. Word got out it was all about to go down in a screaming heap when Eddings came to Sydney, crisis managers were involved, state boards were screaming and Australian cricket was a very unhappy place.

Then Edwards was gone too. Again, in controversial circumstances. He left reluctantly, unhappily.

Hockley was given the job on a temporary basis, dragged in from down the road where he was in charge of organising the T20 World Cup and well versed in the ways of sports management after various roles _ many of them event based.

Nice man. Gentle. English, raised in multicultural Birmingham and son of a highly respected surgeon, he held the job until another of those, sigh, global searches by a headhunting firm had been conducted.

These employment specialists scoured the globe and solar system before concluding that the guy _ this time sitting temporarily in the CEO’s office not in the one next door _ was perfect for the CEO’s gig.

It was hard to argue about Hockley’s appointment.

If he had a flaw it was the difficulty he found in the public performance of his job, but his superpower appears to have been his calm, orderly and quiet approach to administration.

There are probably many achievements and possibly one is the grand, strategic five year plan or something like that, but that’s of little interest to anybody outside of HQ.

For me, getting the Australians to Pakistan for a Test series stands out as the highlight of his tenure. Where Australian cricket had been selfish, timid and insular in the past it was now open and bold enough to accept an invitation to be the first major side to play a Test in that country for a very long time.

Hockley’s upbringing appeared to have encouraged a degree of openness and sympathy for a broader and more inclusive cricket community, both in Australia and in the way Australia engaged with the world. (Yeah, yeah, Afghanistan, don’t @ me …)

He was determined, almost to a fault, to build a better relationship with the players and probably achieved that. Before him there was open hostility between the board/organisation and the players, of late things have been considerably calmer.

Hockley was smart enough, apparently, to make a bee line for David Warner when he covid lifted and he could actually meet the playing group. It was around that time in Pakistan, I think. He came on that tour as a show of solidarity. The players came around to him as much as players can ever come around to someone in that role.

If he let himself down at all it was in the handling of Paine’s and Langer’s departure, but he is not the only one who carries any blame for that.

In Tim’s book, The Price Paid, which I typed for him, the cricketer tells of the night he got a call from Hockley and a “this person they’d hired from a public relations firm”.

“He said that he’d been in the newspaper game for many years and this was going to be huge and would not go away,” Paine said.

There was nothing wrong with the advice or the person who was giving it, but the former skipper said he “found it very strange that this person, someone I’d never met and someone who did not work at Cricket Australia, took the lead in the call while Nick, the chief executive took the back seat … Nick chimed in, saying how experienced this guy was and how he thought I should listen to his advice. I said “Do you want me to resign as Test captain, Nick?” He couldn’t give me a straight answer, or wouldn’t.”

Hockley appeared to be doing the board’s bidding, but the task was rightfully the CEO’s and he shouldn’t have delegated it.

I’m sure if he had his time again …

Similarly, Langer’s exit was handled poorly. One day Justin might tell the story, it is his to tell, but it did not need to end in the manner it did, or be as poorly communicated as it was.

Hockley was a lover not a fighter. He showed that when he quietly got on a plane and flew down to visit Paine in Hobart. The team and cricket had moved on, but Tim had not and was really battling at that time. The man that sacked him went down there to make the peace and find a way to bring the cricketer back into the fold.

Nick Hockley is a fine man and did a fine job, he leaves Australian cricket in a better place than he found it.

Now I’ve said my bit. Here’s the press release which I have cut and pasted and am about to read.

Oh, goody, the five year plan is there!!

Cricket Australia CEO Nick Hockley has announced that he will step down after the upcoming season, following nearly 13 years working in Australian Cricket, including five as CA CEO.

Hockley said: “This was a difficult decision, however following what promises to be a blockbuster summer and with our five-year strategic plan well progressed, this is the right time to pursue another challenge, while giving the Board plenty of time to find its next CEO to build on the strong foundations now in place.

“This is not the time for goodbyes, as I remain completely focussed on the season ahead and supporting the Board on succession and a smooth transition.”

CA Chair Mike Baird confirmed that Nick had advised the Board that next summer would be his final one as CEO.

"As CEO, Nick navigated the sport through a period of unprecedented challenge during the pandemic and has delivered significant growth and stability. Under Nick's leadership, several major deals are now in place - many for the next seven years – and the game is set up for continued success.

"As Nick says, his full focus is on delivering another successful summer for our fans, players, broadcasters, partners and the whole of Australian Cricket and there will be time to celebrate his legacy and achievements when he steps down from the role next year.

"The timing of Nick's decision allows the Board to ensure a smooth transition and we will begin the process of finding and appointing his successor shortly."

Hockley is expected to step down towards the end of March 2025, or potentially later depending on the process to appoint his successor.

Hockley was appointed interim CEO of Cricket Australia in June 2020 and then permanent CEO eleven months later. Having navigated the sport through two seasons of the pandemic, under Hockley’s leadership CA has since secured the foundations and set cricket on a path for growth with a new five-year strategy, seven-year media deals with Seven West Media, Foxtel Group and Disney Star in India, a new player MOU with the Australian Cricketers’ Association which included a 66% uplift in pay for female professional cricketers and reset the Big Bash on its current growth trajectory.

On the playing side, Hockley has overseen a period of remarkable success for Australia’s national teams, including Australia’s first tour to Pakistan in 24 years, winning and retaining both the women’s and men’s Ashes, six ICC trophies including the women’s and men’s Cricket World Cups (2022 and 2023 respectively), the men’s and women’s T20 World Cups (2021 and 2023), the World Test Championship in 2023 and Men’s Under-19 Cricket World Cup in 2024, as well as Commonwealth Games gold in 2022.

Hockley joined Australian Cricket in October 2012 as GM Commercial & Marketing of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, which was attended by more than 1 million fans and generated more than $1 billion for the Australian and New Zealand economies.

Following a brief stint as Head of Commercial Projects, in 2017 Hockley was appointed CEO of the Local Organising Committee for the ICC T20 World Cup 2020, leading the record-breaking Women’s T20 World Cup at which 86,174 fans attended the Final at the MCG.