SYDNEY,( ANI): Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland has denied dumped opening batsman Simon Katich’s suggestion that captain Michael Clarke was behind his axing from the squad and the contracted players list.
“CA emphatically refutes any suggestion that Michael Clarke influenced the independent selection panel’s recommendations for the 2011-12 CA contract players’ list – a list that did not include Katich,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Sutherland, as saying.
“The NSP [national selection panel] made its recommendations based on its independent assessment of Australian cricket’s player needs for the next 12 months and the suggestions made by Katich are completely erroneous, inappropriate and unfair to Clarke, the selectors and to CA.”
“Without compromising my confidential understanding of the selectors’ confidential thinking, I can state their recommendations were completely independent of outside influence,” he added.
Earlier, on Friday, Katich had suggested that an infamous dressing room incident between Clarke and himself at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) in 2009, where he grabbed the then vice-captain by the throat, had impacted on his contract eventually being torn up.
Katich has been reported under the CA Code of Behaviour provisions relating to Detrimental Public Comment.
If he is found guilty, he could be banned from state games for New South Wales and fined up to 5,750 pounds.