Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has announced his resignation from his post after a period of 17 years at the helm. In that time, he has overseen a number of turbulent incidents, with the most recent one being the ball-tampering saga, which saw the Cameron Bancroft, David Warner and Steve Smith face lengthy ban with Darren Lehmann also resigning following the conclusion of the South Africa tour.

Meanwhile, Sutherland is giving a year’s notice and has plans to keep his position until a replacement is found. According to him, this is the right time to announce his departure as he has left the financial position of Australian cricket and cricketers in a good place.

“I feel very comfortable that this is the right time for me and a good time for the game,” he said.

“In the last 12 months we have laid key foundation stones which have included a new strategy for Australian cricket, a new Memorandum of Understanding with the Australian Cricketers’ Association that provides certainty for our male and female cricketers, and just recently, a new domestic broadcast rights deals that will see broader TV coverage and significant increases in revenue flowing into the game,” he said.

Sutherland is the longest running head of a cricket board right now. His 17 years – which is a little over three times the median of 5.3 years – in charge of Cricket Australia is only bettered by Alan Barnes (1960-1980) and William Jeanes (1927-54).

His tenure with CA has been a very successful one as according to IBISWorld, CA had a revenue of $313 million in the last financial year. That’s not all as CA signed a six-year TV rights deal worth $1.182 billion a few weeks ago.