Cricket Australia sensationally bans the ABC from speaking to players after radio presenter’s comments crossed a line: ‘Personal attack’
Cricket Australia has sensationally banned the ABC from speaking with players in post-match radio interviews after Stuart Clark unleashed a brutally scathing attack on Australia’s chief selector George Bailey.
Clarke, a former player and Cricket NSW board member, had appeared to claim that Bailey and CA head of Cricket James Allsopp were unwilling to stand up to Aussie coaches and the caption on key decisions.
Speaking live on ABC, Clark said: ‘James Allsopp who runs cricket in Australia, the head of cricket, community cricket, is a grade club cricket coach that throws underarm balls to kids.
‘That’s what his background is. He’s a lovely guy, don’t get me wrong. But he now runs the whole of cricket. He can’t tell (coach) Andrew McDonald or (captain) Steve Smith what to do.
‘(Ben Oliver) runs high-performance cricket, but I’m not really sure what he does now.
‘Then you have George [Bailey], who is the chairman of selectors. Does he have the gravitas or the leadership skills to tell Andrew McDonald and Steve Smith or Pat Cummins what to do? He should do, 100 per cent, but I don’t think he does.’
Now, Cricket Australia chief executive, Todd Greenberg has branded the comments a ‘personal’ attack on Allsopp and Bailey, claiming that they were also ‘out of order’.
‘When I see criticism of him (Allsopp), I think it touches on the personal criticism. I thought that was unwarranted,’ Greenberg said.
‘It was made very clear to me that they were not comments attributed to Cricket NSW. They were comments attributed to Stuart personally.
‘I’m not going to get into a war of words with Stuart because I’ve got very high regard for him, but when I think that someone’s got it wrong, I’ll say it.’
Greenberg added: ‘On this occasion, I thought he overstepped the mark by talking not just about the decisions, but individually about people. I thought that was personal. I said that to him.’
More to follow…
