Cricket Australia has taken exception to comments from former Australia fast bowler Stuart Clark by boycotting post-play interviews with ABC after day three of the fifth Test at the SCG.
Clark raised the ire of CA chief Todd Greenberg after criticising selection panel chair George Bailey, head of cricket James Allsopp and high-performance boss.
The national broadcaster usually interviews players after each day’s play as part of its cricket coverage but on Tuesday the team refused to conduct interviews after Greenberg was far from amused by Clark’s comments.
Clark said on ABC that “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 Australian 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, 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%, but I don’t think he does.”
Greenberg said he confronted Clark on the matter at the SCG on Tuesday with the CEO claiming his comments were “unwarranted” and “out of order”.
Although he did not want to have a public slanging match with Greenberg on the matter, Clark stood by his comments and said that it was he who sought the administrator out to clear the air.
“I am not going to get into a public spat with Todd. I have known Todd for 20 odd years. We’ve worked together at the NRL. We are friends. We’ve played golf together,” he said.
“We will have had disagreements. We will continue to have disagreements.
Stuart Clark is all smiles after knocking over the stumps of Sachin Tendulkar in 2007 in Melbourne. (Photo by Mark Dadswell/Getty Images)
“We spoke about it cordially and we obviously don’t agree, and that’s cool.
“He’s got respect for me. He’s run national organisations and he’s now in charge of cricket in Australia.
“So from my point of view, I’ll probably see him later on this evening. We’re all going to a function, and we’ll probably have a laugh about it because we’ve been in.
“From my point of view there’s no point having a war of words about this.
“The other thing I want to make mention is when they got it right in Adelaide, I commended them.
“So there is different times and different stages where we’ve been very complimentary of the selectors and the crew that are running Cricket Australia. So that seems to be missed. It’s not just all a one-way street.
“There has been comments made. We’re not going to go any further on them. It’s done. It’s dusted and we’ll all move on.”
Clark, who is a member of the Cricket NSW board and a selector for the state side, played 24 Tests, 39 ODIs and nine T20s for Australia from 2005-09 and was an integral member of the 2006-07 Ashes team which thrashed England 5-0.
Todd Greenberg. (Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images for Cricket Australia)
Greenberg also did not want to further inflame the situation when asked about his run-in with Clark.
“I thought he overstepped the mark by talking not just about the decisions, but individually about people,” he said.
“I thought that was personal. I said that to him.
“I said ‘I don’t want to get into days and days of us going at each other’. But even when mates or friends or contacts get it wrong, I’m going to tell him.
“I’ve dealt with much bigger ones than this one, so it’s not the end of the world.
“What I’m keen to do is put on the record the quality of the people that are making the decisions in high performance and selection.”
Fellow ABC commentator Corbin Middlemas went into bat for Clark.
“That is extremely disappointing from the fact that people in the regions and people who listen to ABC radio right across the country that obviously at this time don’t get the chance to hear from the Australian cricket team,” he said on air.
“We won’t get to hear an opinion from the playing group themselves. This is a public good, the Australian cricket team – it is not a private cricket team, it’s not a private enterprise.
“This group is the custodians of the game as it sits at the moment and it is a team which all Australians have a stake in it.'”
>Cricket News
%20(3).jpeg)
0 Comments