Cricket Australia (CA) has sensationally banned the ABC from speaking with players in post-match radio interviews after broadcaster Stuart Clark unleashed a brutally scathing attack on Australia’s senior leadership group.
Clark, a former player and Cricket NSW board member, had appeared to claim that chief selector George Bailey and CA chief of cricket James Allsopp were unwilling to stand up to Aussie coaches and captains 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.’
Cricket Australia has sensationally barred the country’s national broadcaster ABC from interviewing players after the Sydney Test match (Pictured: Steve Smith)
Cricket Australia chief Todd Greenberg (pictured) said that the governing body was unhappy about comments made by former player and broadcaster Stuart Clark
Clark (centre) had appeared to make scathing comments about Cricket Australia’s head of cricket James Allsopp and chief selector George Bailey
Now, CA chief executive Todd Greenberg has branded the comments a ‘personal’ attack on Allsopp and Bailey, claiming that Clark’s rant was also ‘out of order’.
‘When I see criticism of him [Allsopp], I think it touches on 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.’
Daily Mail has contacted Cricket Australia for comment. Clark has since claimed that he ‘sought out’ Greenberg over the matter.
It is understood that the broadcasters do not have a contractual obligation to speak to players after a day’s play.
However, Cricket Australia works to maintain relationships with broadcasters by asking certain players to conduct interviews after they have left the cricket field.
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.’
Clark claimed that James Allsopp (left) was a ‘club coach that throws underarm balls to kids’. He also took aim at Pat Cummins (right) and Australia’s leadership group
Clark said that chief selector Bailey (pictured) did not have the ‘gravitas or leadership’ to tell Australia’s coaches or senior players what to do
The ABC’s Corbin Middlemas revealed that after Smith and Beau Webster had walked off the pitch at the SCG, leaving Australia 518-7 and leading England by 134 runs, no members of the national broadcaster were offered the chance to speak to players from the Australian team.
Middlemas claimed that the decision by Cricket Australia was ‘extremely disappointing’.
Clark, a former fast bowler who played for New South Wales, took 94 wickets across 24 Test matches for Australia.
He retired in 2007 and would later go on to be appointed as the general manager of the Sydney Sixers Big Bash League team. He departed his role in 2012, and would later be appointed as NSW Rugby League’s chief operating officer.
Clark, who has also been employed by ABC for some time, has since opened up on his talk with Greenberg, denying that there was any bad blood between himself and the CA chief executive.
‘Look, I’m not going to get into a public spat with Todd,’ he said on ABC Radio.
‘I’ve known Todd for 20-odd years. We’ve worked together at the NRL. He was at National Rugby League, I was at New South Wales Rugby League.
‘We’re friends. We’ve played golf together. We’ve done all of that.
Greenberg said Clark (pictured) made a ‘personal’ attack on the Australian leadership group, that some of his comments had ‘overstepped the mark’
‘We’ll have disagreements. We’ll continue to have disagreements. We obviously don’t agree.’
He explained that the pair had spoken about the flashpoint ‘cordially.’
‘We obviously don’t agree, but that’s cool,’ he told ABC.
‘He’s got respect for me. He’s run national organisations, and he’s now in charge of cricket in Australia.
‘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 — well, we’ve both worked in rugby league, so you can imagine where that’s at.
‘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.’