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Sportswear company Skins takes out full-page ad in SMH calling for Cricket Australia to take action

In the wake if the cheating scandal engulfing Australia’s cricket team, sportswear company Skins has run a full-page ad, in the form of an open letter to Cricket Australia, on page seven of Fairfax’s Sydney Morning Herald.

The letter is penned by Jaimie Fuller, a sports governance campaigner and executive chairman of Skins, and calls on the board of Cricket Australia to be more transparent about the who, what and how of the ball-tampering incident “within a few days”.

It’s time, Fuller argues, for the board to act.

“Cricket is such a part of our national psyche that it helps define us. It helps give us a sense of what is fair, and what is not; what is right and what is wrong,” the letter says.

“However, even though you are presiding over the sport, it doesn’t belong to you. You are the custodians of it.

“And now you must get your job right.”

The letter also alleges collusion and cover ups by the cricketing body.

“Ball tampering is wrong. It’s not in the rules. Collusion is wrong. Covrring-up is wrong… Please don’t repeat your other recent failrures of governance.

“You know what I mean, don’t you?” the letter says before alleging Cricket Australia is in “bed with” the England Cricket Board and the Board of Control for Cricket in India “in an attempt to grab the power, glory and 52% of the money in international cricket between the three of you, and leave the other 102-cricket-playing nations to scramble amongst themselves for the remaining 48%”.

Fuller has used Fairfax to get his message to the Cricket Australia board

The brand then puts Cricket Australia “on notice” and says those responsible should play no further part in the Test series.

“You need to tell us who’s behind this, who came up with the idea, who agreed to it, who knew about it. Not in a month or so, but in the next few days.”

No action, Fuller writes, will have wide-ranging implications.

“If you don’t [take action], it’s not just the Australian cricket team who is shamed. But it will be all of you. It will be cricket. And it will be all of us.

“It’s time to do the right thing. Right now.”

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