Australian Cricket Boss, Halbish Sacked (18 Jan 1997)

18 January 1997

Australian cricket boss, Halbish, sacked

SYDNEY, Jan 18: As cricket circles at home and around the world try to come to recover from the news of the sacking of the most powerful man of Australian cricket, Graham Halbish, the staff of the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) were refused permission to enter the Melbourne Office.

The Jolimont Street of the ACB is under a 24-hour surveillance by local police and the premises will be out of bound for any staff.

Halbish, the Chief Executive of the ACB was sacked by an 11-3 Board decision made last week in Perth by the 14 delegates elected by the respective state association.

Halbish`s single-handedness and decisions to override accepted procedure led to a bitter confrontation between him and the board members which at times have left the ACB embarrassed this summer.

Sources told Dawn that relations between Halbish and ACB chairman Dennis Rogers had become unworkable. Halbish is not the first Chief Executive to be sacked in world cricket in recent times, Pakistan`s Arif Ali Abbasi was accused of the same and was replaced by former Test star Majid Khan soon after the sixth World Cup.

As one ACB member said today: "It was not one issue or one disagreement which caused Graham`s departure, but a series of things. It was a clash of ideas about how we should operate, not a clash about any big differences in policy or philosophy about how the game should be run."

Halbish has sought legal advice in the wake of his sensational departure from office. But Halbish said in a statement released today through his solicitors that he would not be making any comment on the issue at this time. "Obviously there are two sides to a story like this and it is for this reason that I have taken legal advice," the statement read. "This advice is that it is not in the best interests of anyone to discuss the matter or to canvass any of the issues at this time.

Halbish, 48, joined the ACB in 1981 and became general manager in 1984. He replaced David Richards as CE in 1993, with Richards moving onto a position with the International Cricket Council. Halbish was a key figure behind the establishment of the Australian Cricket Academy in Adelaide. It was known that the New South Wales ACB delegates were furious at losing their traditional New Year`s Day Test for the second year in a row this season.

In 1995 Sydney hosted the third Test against Pakistan in the first week of December to fit in with the tourists` tight schedule and this season Australia played West Indies in November.

Rogers took up the position of chairman in September 1995, becoming the first Tasmanian to hold the post.

ACB operations manager Richard Watson, the former Tasmanian Cricket Association executive, was believed to be favoured to take over from Halbish.

Source :: Dawn (https://xiber.com/dawn)