NZ Cricket's model outstanding in its field

New Zealand Cricket leads the world in sporting governance. Photo / Kenny Rodger

New Zealand Cricket leads the world in sporting governance. In 1995, the old cricket board voted itself out of existence after the John Hood report and ushered in a fully independent model that the rest of the cricketing world is now rushing to imitate.

International jurist Lord Woolf is leading a team to renew the International Cricket Council governance structures. Many, including New Zealander Alan Isaac, who will assume the ICC presidency in June, expect Woolf's recommendations to mirror the Hood report when it is released at the end of the month. Last month Cricket Australia slashed its board members from 14 to nine (New Zealand went from 13 to seven, now expanded to eight) after a long-ranging report headed by David Crawford, who also restructured the AFL.

Justin Vaughan, outgoing New Zealand Cricket chief executive, can't understand the long wait.

"Facetiously, I said to my chairman [Chris Moller], why did they pay Mr Crawford so much and why did it take him so long when all they wanted to do was copy what New Zealand Cricket does," he says.

It's not just cricket, the AFL moved to a quasi-independent model, New Zealand league has gone independent, Australian league is looking at similar measures and the rugby union is instituting a review of its governance.

"Our model has been adopted by all our provincial associations and in the eyes of the cricketing world, New Zealand governance structures are seen as gold standard," he says.

Vaughan expects the Woolf report to at least separate the roles of president and chairman, the latter who gets no board voting rights under present ICC rules.

"If I were a betting man, it would be that Lord Wolf will come up with sensible recommendations; the risk is whether the ICC will adopt them all," he says.

He's also betting on New Zealand devising new best-practice ways of managing grass roots sports: "The issues for grass roots sports are considerable. It isn't a cricket-specific problem; it's shared by all sports and the club model is one that hasn't changed for decades."

New Zealand Cricket has so many commercial disadvantages that it has been forced to innovate to survive and thrive.

Vaughan believes the innovation it develops in its management of grass roots sport could provide a global blueprint for the rest of the world to follow.

Including Australia.