Mike Baird

Well, certainly Fitz thought it was something of a historical or an historic sort of win.

In cricket, Jack, David Boone has taken over as interim Cricket Australia chairman after Mike Baird announced he will stand down from the board following a fallout with New South Wales.

So Boone in, Mike Baird out.

And this is Baird insisting that he has no regrets about ploughing ahead with the privatisation of the big bash league, despite it costing him the endorsement of his home state, who would also not support him transferring from being their representative on the board to serving as the chairman from an

independent role.

Yeah.

He's the father of Mike Baird.

Yes, that's it.

Bruce and I were friends.

Oh, look, my view is that I, I, I serve to the board of Cricket Australia and, um, you know, the management team and myself, we execute the strategy on behalf of the board.

Um, and, you know, don't, don't think that this was a Mike Baird decision.

This was an Australian Cricket Board decision, and will continue to be.

What chance the Renegades fetch north of 200 million on the open market?

Well, you're certainly right in terms of he loves that lifestyle over in New York, the T20 circuit franchise cricket seems to agree with him pretty well as he looks for that Olympic berth.

But to kind of segue into the next topic and one I mentioned earlier, Dan, in terms of privatization in the Big Bash League, clearly when we weren't recording this show over the winter here in Australia, it's been one of the biggest topics that's been bubbling away for some time, that you've got Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird has since resigned from his post, that you've had the states kind of going up against each other.

The players still haven't come to some sort of agreement.

Where does it kind of sit at the moment for, for people who are still catching up in terms of the, the privatization debate?

Look, it's been very messy across several facets.

Um, there's a lot of tension points, particularly in terms of New South Wales against Cricket Australia, Mike Baird's departure, former New South Wales premier.

Um, other state, it's not as though all the other states are on board necessarily as well.

Certainly Queensland remains against the current, um, model from privatization perspective.

Yeah, yeah.

I spent my Ramadan, and then I actually happened, uh, I, I think the LMA invited me to go to, um- He-- They invited me to go to an Iftar with Mike Baird at the time, who was the premier.

Mm-hmm.

And then, uh, Mike Baird had actually attended one of my el- uh, talks I did at somebody's home, and so he sort of spoke to me about what I spoke about, and we, we sort of had-

Mm-hmm

... minimal contact.

And then he, um, he sort of-- I bumped into him at his Iftar, and he goes, "Are you, like, how are things at LMA?" And I was like, "Oh, I d- I'm not at the LMA." He goes, "What are you doing now?" I said, "I've gone back to the UK." And he goes, "What are you doing there?" I said, "I'm just spending time with the family and sort of recalibrating." And he said, "Oh, you have any plans to come back?" I said, "Well, not really, but if something is on the record, I would, I'll, I'll think about it." So he's like, "Oh, that's interesting, so I didn't realize you were, like, a free agent." And then, um, then afterwards, I think the, the killing of Curtis Cheng occurred.

Right.

So I think most people have registered in the public that the, the main, you know, supposition for, or premise for selling is this growing, like, um, problem in CA's finances.

But last week, like, Mike Baird, um, stood down from the board, and in his statement said that-

that-At least in this year, CA is gonna report record revenue and profit this year.

Can you square those two things?

Can I just add to that as well?

Yeah.

'Cause I... 'cause, um, Mike Baird talked about this and so did Todd.

Um, they, they continue to say in their key messages, "We understand the risks," but we never hear what they are.

Looking forward to tracking his progress.

Mike Baird has resigned as Cricket Australia chair.

What's going on here?

Oh, it's a mess.

This is all over privatisation.

So when I saw this, Mike Baird is a former Premier of New South Wales, one of the states here in Australia, of course, and he went on to the Cricket Australia board.

He was nominated by Cricket New South Wales.

Now, all the states are having a say on whether or not we sell off the big bash to private investments.