The board met on Wednesday with chief executive Todd Greenberg confirming that Gardner’s vice-captaincy had been discussed but will continue to be endorsed, and that CA had been aware of the relationship with Voll before it became public.
Gardner’s wife Monica Wright had criticised CA for remaining silent on Gardner’s position and allowing her to remain vice-captain after accusing her of having the affair.
“It was discussed yesterday at the board level,” Greenberg told reporters in Darwin. “The board asked for an update on it, which we provided, and the outcome of that is the board are very supportive of Ash in the role as she was appointed to the vice-captaincy, [there’s] huge and high regard for Ash.”
Gardner herself took to social media on Thursday to address the situation for the first time since the story emerged.
“While my separation from my wife is a personal matter, I understand my current relationship status needed to be addressed by Cricket Australia given my position as vice-captain,” Gardner posted on Instagram.
“I am grateful that the CA Board has chosen to support my continued leadership. I look forward to playing a strong role as a leader and providing the best possible support for my teammates in the season to come.
“I am grateful for the time Monica and I shared and sorry for the pain this has caused. I wish her nothing but happiness and success in the future.
“I won’t be making any further public comment on this matter at this time and ask that the privacy of those involved is respected.”
However, Greenberg added that Gardner’s situation had prompted CA to update their Respect at Work policy in regard to personal relationships within their teams involving players in leadership positions.
“We’ve got a Respect at Work policy, which we’ve now put some additional measures in place,” he said. “Because we want to make sure that either the perception or the real conflict of selections, even though the vice-captain doesn’t have a say in selections in the team, the leadership role and the influence that person might have to put guard rails in about how the policy works. Outside of that, we’ve deemed it a personal matter.”
“That’s right,” Greenberg said. “And we think that’s important. Even if there’s not a conflict, even if there’s a perceived level of conflict, not just from the outside, but from other team-mates or from staff.
“We’re in some difficult territory here because, like all sports, we’re all learning a little bit about how these high-performance environments can operate. So we want to be making sure that our policies are keeping up with the realities, and I think that’s exactly what we’ve done. The board was super supportive of Ash and have been since the start.”
Alex Malcolm is an associate editor at Cricinfo
