Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley has for the first time addressed significant allegations that have plagued Australian cricket over the last 48 hours in an exclusive interview with SEN Test Cricket.
The night before the second Test against the West Indies, David Warner announced he was withdrawing his appeal to overturn his leadership ban from the infamous sandpaper incident. In doing so, the Australian opener took a significant parting shot at the process and displayed his fury in an 800-word statement.
It's seen criticism come for CA over its handling of the process, which has been outsorced to an independent panel.
Hockley said he was “disappointed” Warner had withdrawn the appeal to overturn his leadership ban, but added he disagreed with the assertion that it would become a public hearing. Hockley insisted the appeal would not dig into the events of sandpapergate, seemingly at odds with Warner’s claims. He also disagreed with the Australian opener’s claims that the appeal would turn into a “public lynching”, had it occurred.
“This was never and this was not re-looking at the events or the decision, this was about looking at the sanction and whether the behaviour since, and the remediation and remorse was such that the ban could be modified,” Hockley stated.
Further to that, Hockley did confirm that CA had also asked for the process to be behind closed doors, but that the independent panel wanted select media invited in.
In his initial statement, Warner claimed the independent review panel appeared to push for a public hearing on the events of more than four years ago.
“In effect, Counsel Assisting, and, it appears, to some extent the Review Panel, want to conduct a public trial of me and what occurred during the Third Test at Newlands. They want to conduct a public spectacle to, in the Panel's words, have a ‘cleansing’. I am not prepared for my family to be the washing machine for cricket's dirty laundry,” Warner stated on Wednesday.
However, Hockley further stated it wasn’t a mistake to hand control of the process to an independent body, describing it as “best practice”.
“No, I don't think so,” he replied when asked if it was wrong to make it an independent process
“I think what's really important is procedural fairness, and there are some standards from Sports Integrity Australia about a level of independence.”
He was also repeatedly questioned on James Erskine’s bombshell comments on Thursday, which alleged more people had knowledge of the ball-tampering incident at Newlands, South Africa back in 2018.
The CA boss described those comments as not helpful and suggested they could achieve what Warner seemingly wanted to avoid.
“I think those comments are really unhelpful and unfounded comments…” he said.
He added: “I think to open up, if anything has been opened up, then I think that’s totally counter to the objectives of the process and I think is precisely what David was hoping would not happen when he applied for it to be done in private”.
Hockley also said that he and Warner were yet to discuss his public comments together.
Listen to the full interview with Hockley below
Earlier on Friday, former Australian opener Simon Katich told SEN Test Cricket that Hockley was under increasing pressure to remain in his job.
Hockley has been CA’s full-time chief executive for over a year, and served the role on an interim basis for just shy of 12 months before that.
The criticism over David Warner’s appeals process and the opener’s manager’s explosive comments about sandpapergate, on top of poor crowd figures in recent months are all problems the governing cricket body could have done without.
“I think given the way things have unfolded in the last couple of days and the way CA has outsourced a lot of these tough leadership decisions which come with the roles, I think there’s going to be pressure on Nick Hockley moving forward...” Katich said.