More bloodshed at Cricket Australia with Pat Howard and Ben Amarfio axed after culture report
AUSTRALIA’S horror start to the summer of cricket has spiced up, with two more heads rolling at Cricket Australia as part of the ugly fallout to last week’s damning culture review.
Cricket
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cricket. Followed categories will be added to My News.
PAT Howard was sacked today after the high-performance system he created crumbled to ruins around him.
Australia’s high-performance boss was called out of a phone hook-up with state officials to be brutally informed he would not be allowed to serve out the last year of his contract which expired after next year’s Ashes series.
Ben Amarfio, the man who brokered the $1 billion television deal, will follow him out the door after reports that stakeholders and underbidders were unhappy with his demeanour during the bare-knuckled negotiation period.
MORE CRICKET NEWS
NEW HOPE: Aussie batting prodigy lauded ‘best since Ponting’
T20S: Have CA opened door for Warner and Smith?
The departures were formally announced by Cricket Australia on Wednesday afternoon, with champion women’s player Belinda Clark to become the interim team performance manager once Howard formally leaves next week.
Chaos reigns in Australian cricket as the fallout to the Cape Town ball tampering affair and cultural reviews continues.
The duo follow chairman David Peever, coach Darren Lehmann, chief executive James Sutherland and board member Mark Taylor out the CA door with the three banned players Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft.
A meeting of Australian cricket state executives scheduled for this afternoon was postponed to Thursday to allow states to digest the news.
Howard has been strongly criticised for the direction in which he took Australian cricket, towards the fast-tracking of young talent and away from time honoured pathways such as the Sheffield Shield.
But the most significant slur came in last week’s cultural review with the revelations that a grubby “win at all costs’’’ culture had permeated Australian cricket.
As high performance boss, he was accountable for that culture which was seen as the root for the grubby sledging seen in recent years and ultimately, the ball tampering affair.
A former Australian rugby union player, Howard was famous for charging headlong into the All Black defence in his first Test.
Bravery was his strong suit. Subtlety was not.
When he arrived in the Australian system after the Argus Report in 2011, Australia needed an agent of change and former selection chairman Rod Marsh is one voice who lauded Howard for shaking up the system.
He was big on statistics, pathway systems, sports science and performance diaries and never shied away from a tough call.
He was there when Australia won the 2015 World Cup, home Ashes series, the No.1 world ranking and during bad times was admired for accepting responsibility and offering to resign.
But he shook the system up so much it fell off the rails.
Two of Australia’s best cricket journalists, Robert Craddock and Peter Lalor, join the Cricket Unfiltered Podcast to discuss the recent findings of the twin reviews into the culture of the Australian cricket team.
In Howard’s era, the Sheffield Shield lost its sting and was seen as a glorified trial system rather than the flint-hard competition it had always had been.
The low point was the day when Mitchell Starc was replaced by Doug Bollinger at the halfway point of a Shield game for no major reason and as a fresh Bollinger steamed through Queensland, a bewildered Starc stood on the sidelines wishing he was bowling more.
Young players were rushed through pathway systems and often cruelly exposed when they reached the top level without their talent being varnished by the robust forces of club cricket and extensive Sheffield Shield play.
Also, Australia has simply stopped producing batsmen of decent quality.
Howard was big on having set workloads on young bowlers such as 40 balls in the nets, much to frustration of old sweats like Jason Gillespie who loathed this system and felt youngsters built up resilience by pushing themselves.
Brett Lee was another who felt that the resting and workload limitation was contrary to everything be believed in and, as evidence, pointed to the career of Michael Kasprowicz, significantly a CA board member who voted on Howard’s sacking.
It was inevitable - even though it took an extended period of time - that Howard would be found responsible in some form for the Cape Town disaster.
Australia will say all the right things about not ruling out someone from outside cricket as their next high-performance chief but it is Winx odds it will be a former cricketer.
Every Test, ODI, T20I, and BBL match live. Get Sport HD + Entertainment with no lock in contract and no iQ4 set up costs. SIGN UP TODAY! T&C’s Apply
Originally published as More bloodshed at Cricket Australia with Pat Howard and Ben Amarfio axed after culture report
Cummins back, big chance for batting prodigy
Two players absent on daddy duties has opened the ODI door for a batting dynamo as the Australian skipper returns for the first time in a year.
Aussies rocked by bombshell development
A spot in the Australian Test team is now up for grabs after confirmation of season-ending surgery for the star all-rounder.