CA released the results of the reviews – Simon Longstaff from The Ethics Centre conducted the organisational review, and a concurrent players review was also held, led by former Test batsman Rick McCosker – on Monday, October 29, in which the body’s leadership was blamed for overlooking the fact that cricket was not a business.

The review said cricket’s participants were judged by their adherence to the spirit of the game as much as they are by wins and losses, and that in CA’s attempt to corporatise, centralise and improve team performance, it had missed that.

It also identified the decay of the national men’s team that led to David Warner and Cameron Bancroft attempting to alter the condition of the ball with sandpaper in Cape Town, with the support of then captain Steve Smith.

Women’s cricket, the review said, was not affected.

“While good intentions might reduce culpability – they do not lesson [sic] responsibility … especially not for those who voluntarily take on the mantle of leadership. In our opinion, CA’s fault is not that it established a culture of ‘win at all costs’.

Not the happiest 32nd birthday for David Warner, although he did go on to score a hundred.https://t.co/X0IOZBO406

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) October 27, 2018

“Rather, it made the fateful mistake of enacting a program that would lead to ‘winning without counting the costs’. It is this approach that has led, inadvertently, to the situation in which cricket finds itself today – for good and for ill.

“It has also given rise to a series of ‘shadow values and principles’ – a set of implicit norms that are often driving conduct that is at odds with the requirements of CA’s formal Ethical Framework, How We Play, and The Spirit of Cricket.”

The full review can be read here.