Sydney, Apr 14 : Cricket Australia (CA) has been urged to appoint an independent governing body.

Under CA's current rules, the state cricket associations each appoint their own delegates to the board, with the numbers weighted in favour of founding members NSW, Victoria and South Australia.

The call comes during a CA-commissioned governance review, led by two experts, David Crawford and Colin Carter, with past links to the AFL Commission.

Wisden editor Scyld Berry, who has visited Australia several times, including for the recent Ashes series, said he was disheartened that Australian Rules football was taking cricket''s place as the national team sport, The Sydney Morning herald reports.

He traced it back to the then-VFL's formation of an independent commission in the 1980s, leading to national expansion and financial growth.

"Now the Victorian Football League is the Australian Football League, thriving nationwide and attracting young elite athletes with its average salary of $230,000, twice that of the state cricketer, and with 800 jobs available - eight times as many as in professional cricket," Berry said in the editor's notes for Wisden Almanack.

Crawford oversaw the 1992 report that resulted in the current structure of the AFL Commission, while Carter was an AFL commissioner for 15 years. (ANI)