Nick Hockley, the chief executive of Cricket Australia, has defended his company’s handling of David Warner’s appeal against his leadership ban despite concerns that CA lost control of the issue.
Despite the fact that “some level of transparency” was necessary, it is stated that “the fact that it has gotten so public is absolutely opposite to what we were attempting to achieve.”
In order to make the process “fair and transparent,” according to Hockley, an independent review panel was necessary.
The independent review panel’s decision to hold the hearing in public left Warner with no choice but to withdraw his request to have his lifetime leadership ban, which was imposed following the Newlands Test in 2018, overturned, according to the Australian Cricketers’ Association (ACA), which said that Warner had no other option.
On the eve of the second Test against the West Indies, Warner made a dramatic announcement in which he alleged that the review panel had sought a “public lynching” by essentially putting the events of Newlands through a retrial.
According to Hockley, the hearing would have been conducted with consideration for Warner and his family’s best interests in mind. He also noted that requests for private hearings for specific hearing components might have been submitted.
In addition, he stated once more that, contrary to Warner’s assertion, the hearing would not have been a repeat of what happened at Newlands in 2018.
Hockley stated that they were dissatisfied with the applicant’s decision to withdraw their application. The fact that it has gained so much attention is completely at odds with what we were aiming to accomplish, therefore this is not the result we expected.
He might have said, “I am going to withdraw, but I am not going to make a public comment,” or he could have continued the process and filed an application during the hearing to ask for accredited media not to participate.
The modified code of conduct left the specifics of the review up to the independent panel, but CA had agreed with Warner in agreeing that the hearing should be held in secret.
According to Hockley, “There is obviously a great deal of public interest in this, and the commissioners decided that it was acceptable for there to be a level of transparency.” “I make no apologies about working with the greatest people, having best-in-class governance, and conducting a proper, fair, and independent process.”
We are really unhappy, not just for David and his family but also for his teammates who I know are really frustrated about this process and that it has been allowed to extend into the Test summer, so it would be a reasonable understatement for me to say we are not unbelievably frustrated.
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