Cricket ACT hopes it will be in a position to appoint a new chief executive as early as next week with three board members flying to Melbourne on Wednesday to conduct finals interviews.
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Cricket ACT chairman Ian McNamee is adamant the final decision will rest with his board, despite speculation that Cricket Australia will appoint a current staffer to the position to be vacated by Mark Vergano in June.
McNamee and two fellow board members will join Cricket Australia hierarchy in quizzing a short list of candidates in the hope Cricket ACT will be able to rubber stamp a new leader next week.
"Cricket Australia have been an enormous help in compiling the applications and we're very grateful for their assistance," McNamee said.
"We will meet with CA staff and the remaining applicants on [Wednesday] and it will be a Cricket ACT decision.
"A local club president will be consulted on the process as well. There will be three of us going down, you can't have the whole board going down as a selection panel.
"A recommendation will come through ... we had hope to have it finalised last Friday, but it didn't come about."
Vergano will quit in June after filling the chief executive role for the past 13 years.
The biggest summer of cricket in Canberra's history is winding down with first grade finals action, but McNamee said the bumper calendar of events has attracted "high quality and worldwide" applications to replace Vergano.
Manuka Oval hosted an Australia v South Africa one-day international, the Prime Minister's XI fixture, the Big Bash Twenty20 final and three World Cup games.
Canberra could also host more games in the domestic one-day competition next year.
McNamee said Ireland officials were so impressed with the Manuka Oval facilities that they want to build their own version of the ground in Dublin.
"We only had lights put in 26 months ago ... [West Indies star] Chris Gayle wanted to pick up Manuka and take it back to the Caribbean and more importantly Ireland said the venue plan would be ideal for Dublin and they want to replicate it," McNamee said.
"There haven't been any more talks with Cricket Australia, but we've got a great venue. The applicants we've got for the [chief executive role] are committed to growing cricket in this region.
"We had applications from all around the world and some very highly qualified people.
"I think it is an attractive position ... people would see this is a great area to grow the game. That's the biggest thing about it, we're just starting. There's enormous growth that can occur."
