Sydney: Former Australian bowler Mitchell Johnson has been sacked by Cricket Australia from speaking in two public functions.
News Corp has reported that Cricket Australia has prevented Johnson from making two guest speaking appearances that were scheduled to be held in Perth stadium during Pakistan’s Test against Australia. It comes on the back of Johnson’s explosive column where he questioned David Warner’s place in the Test team and why he is been given “a hero’s sent-off” despite Warner’s involvement in “the sandpaper gate”, the ball-tampering incident in South Africa in 2018.
“Mitchell is one of Australia’s most celebrated bowlers, but we felt on this occasion it was in everyone’s best interests that he was not the guest speaker at the CA functions,’’ a CA spokesman told News Corp on December 19.
Former Australian batsman Michael Hussey was reportedly roped in as replacement to Johnson.
Johnson commentated on the game on the Triple M radio though initially there were rumours that he was replaced even there as his name didn’t feature in the roster of commentators initially put out by the radio channel. However, he did make his commentary stint with them.
After the uproar over his column, Johnson talked about what he regretted in that piece in his podcast The Mitchell Johnson show.
“There is one thing I wasn’t that happy with,” Johnson said. “I didn’t notice it at the time. I was reading the article and just sort of went with it. The “Bunnings” and the “sandpaper” part of it. Probably distasteful. That was probably something that didn’t need to be said. The reason that (the sandpaper scandal) came up is that I just don’t look at statistics. I look at the whole picture. And I’m not trying to bring up those old things. But someone to get a farewell and to be in that position that he was and what they did back then, that didn’t quite sit right with me, that’s why I brought it up.’’
In his latest column, Johnson reiterated that he largely stood with what he wrote in his previous article.
“He did what he was paid to do in the first innings before Saturday’s duck in the second innings.“I think my opinion in this column a couple of weeks ago is still valid,” Johnson wrote. “He hadn’t scored runs in about three years apart from the double century last summer … Another point made was that a soft summer like this, with Australia expected to comfortably beat Pakistan and the West Indies, was the perfect time to look at blooding some new players into an ageing team.
“They could have given some new guys some really good time out in the middle this summer and backed them in. That’s going to be much harder across the next two summers when India and England visit for five-Test series.”
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