Kevin Roberts, the Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive on Tuesday said that the standing down of the majority of its staff due to the coronavirus pandemic cannot be considered as an overreaction.
His remarks came as Cricket Australia on April 16 announced that it would be standing down its majority of staff from April 27 until the end of the current financial year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"It wasn't an overreaction because we're dealing with a situation that's hitting us unfortunately at the low point of our cash cycle over four years. We reach a point in early September where if there are more shocks as we've had over the last month or more, where our reserves are very thin and in fact effectively we'd chart a path to zero if we didn't take drastic action," ESPNCricinfo quoted Roberts as saying.
"Then you layer on top of that the possibility that the international season doesn't go ahead, and that's an issue of hundreds of millions of dollars," he added.
Roberts also said that he still has the support of the CA board, the states, and his own staff to continue to prepare for a wide range of possible scenarios for the game.
The state associations debated and won a backdown from CA on the depth of cuts to their annual grants, from 45 per cent to 25 per cent.
"We are all across Australian cricket acknowledging that reductions might need to go to that level but that's preemptive planning. What we need is a plan to take 25 per cent of cricket Australia's operating expenses out next financial year with a further plan to go deeper if need be and something similar with the states and territories," Roberts said.
Earlier this year, Australia's three-match ODI series against New Zealand was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The first ODI was played behind closed doors, but after that, the series was postponed.
( With inputs from ANI )
