How Cricket Australia avoided a culture war and kept the lights on

1 hour ago 2

Opinion

November 17, 2025 — 6.21pm

Cricket Australia, Origin Energy and Pat Cummins insist it is coincidental that the national governing body’s new energy sponsor has a subsidiary, Origin Zero, that has been working with Cummins’ Cricket For Climate venture for 18 months.

But all parties agree that this happy accident has obvious benefits.

Through the Cricket for Climate Venture, Pat Cummins was already working with Origin Energy. Now it’s a significant sponsor of Cricket Australia.

By engaging with Australia’s biggest energy retailer after it had already started working with Cummins and CFC, cricket’s governing body has sidestepped the culture wars that broke out over a previous partnership with Alinta.

Cummins told this masthead in 2022 that he shared his frank views on personal sponsors, and wanting climate to be a consideration in future sponsorships, with CA’s then chief executive Nick Hockley. This was widely interpreted to mean he had pressured CA to end the Alinta deal, which was never the case.

The voices that badgered Cummins most incessantly over his views on climate change, and willingness to express them, were largely drawn from the conservative wing of politics that is still fighting battles that most of the energy industry now wants to move away from.

Just this week, Australia’s biggest energy suppliers allied together to argue that the push for net zero by 2050 is the best way to provide certainty and stability for the market, ultimately working to reduce both the carbon footprint and the price of power.

Those same voices – think Alan Jones, Steve Price or Andrew Bolt – also harangued Cricket Australia, creating a wave of ill-feeling that was viscerally felt within the four walls of Jolimont, at cricket grounds and in the hunt for sponsors.

CA’s eventual partnership with Origin, some two years after the end of its five-year association with Alinta, aligns the national sport with arguably the biggest name in energy. Both are entities that have to be broad enough to encompass multiple points of view on many issues.

So it is that Origin can advocate for a push to net zero while remaining the biggest gas-powered electricity company in the country, and the owner of Eraring, the biggest coal-fired power station in Australia. To some it is hypocrisy, but to most it is pragmatism.

During his days as New South Wales treasurer, it was the now CA chair Mike Baird who sold Eraring to Origin. Originally slated to close this year, it will now chug along until at least 2027 while the federal government manages the energy transition.

Ben Dwarshuis, Pat Cummins, Phoebe Litchfield and Hannah Darlington help announce CA’s new sponsor, Origin Energy.

At the same time, CA can back Cummins’ climate work while continuing to play cricket matches under lights, flying players and coaches around Australia and the world on jet airliners, and maintain commercial partnerships with a fast food company (KFC), an alcohol supplier (Liquorland) and a betting firm (Bet365).

As Cummins continues to believe, there is nothing wrong with trying to improve climate preservation efforts while still living a normal life. And as for those who throw stones at this perceived double standard? He answered them long ago.

“I usually get ‘Captain Planet’,” Cummins laughed in 2023. “A few mates say that.

“In the climate space, I’ve tried to change a few things in my life. It’s a really divisive topic – and I can’t understand why. We’ve all got one planet, if you think you can do one thing better, that’s a good thing. Doesn’t mean you have to live in a cabin in the woods to care about the environment.”

Pragmatism, of course, is also driven by circumstances. Given its recent run of annual deficits, CA will be grateful to Origin for (literally) helping to keep the lights on.

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