da premier bet： Christina Matthews, the WACA chief executive, also spoke about how the banned Cameron Bancroft has embraced his community service
da pinnacle： Melinda Farrell16-Dec-2018Australian cricket’s diminished reputation has contributed to mediocre crowd numbers for the Test against India in Perth, according to WACA chief executive, Christina Matthews. Matthews said the comparison between Test and BBL ticket sales suggested Australian international cricket was “on the nose” with fans, a situation made worse by Cricket Australia’s handling of the subsequent inquiries.The opening day for the first Test played at the new Perth Stadium had a crowd of 20,746 and over the first three days the total was 59,545.”I don’t think it’s the team, I think Australian cricket as an entity is on the nose and a little bit of trust has been lost,” Matthews told radio.”What happened in South Africa was kind of an insult to everybody and how they feel about the game. We follow that up a few months later with the cultural review and let’s say the lack of foresight on Cricket Australia’s part to see how the public was going to react to that. You live and learn. Don’t forget we’ve got a World Cup and an Ashes series coming up in the winter and a reset in that sense.’It isn’t easy to change an institution’
Christina Matthews believes Cricket Australia is “not quite ready” for a female CEO after she was overlooked as James Sutherland’s successor
“I put myself up because as the only female chief executive I thought it was my responsibility to lead the way and show others it was possible,” she said. “I am the first woman to be interviewed by the board in 150 years, so going great guns there, another 30 years and we’ll probably have a female chief executive, so I’ve broken the back of that.
“I wasn’t overly confident of getting it but in some ways that really frees you up to talk about what you think you could do. After it was all over I got a couple of calls from board members to kind of compliment me and say the impression I made on them so that was always nice. But, you know, it’s an institution. It isn’t easy to change an institution.
“I had an interesting experience in the process of talking to people when they knew I was applying. Females would go, ‘fantastic, you’d be great.’ Men go, ‘really? You think you’re up to that?’ So I think that it kind of told me we’re not quite ready for that yet.”
“No doubt when we were planning for this a few years ago we would have hoped for 30-35,000 first day crowd, but we didn’t expect the upheaval that was going to happen in cricket over the last nine months. That’s obviously had an effect on Australian cricket and we know that because we know how well the BBL is doing in cricket sales and corporate hospitality – it is smashing everything.”It’s not happening in Australian cricket so there’s obviously been an impact but I think as the team progresses, the result in Adelaide got people a little more sentimental about the team, and as the team improves that will come back again.”Matthews has been directly involved with the welfare and rehabilitation of Cameron Bancroft since the Newlands scandal, managing his community service role. Bancroft is contracted to Western Australia and his nine-month CA code of conduct ban expires on December 29.”We didn’t want it to be a ‘ticking the box’ exercise and do a hundred hours at a junior club and there you go. We wanted it to be a learning experience for him, and to be fair to him he wanted it to be a productive experience as well, so it was exciting last week when I could write to Cricket Australia and letting them know that Cameron had completed his community hours. He had to do a hundred and he did at least double that.”So he did things like working with kids with cancer to kids at schools in breakfast clubs in disadvantaged areas, he did some work with our diversity groups at the WACA junior cricket disabled cricket things like that and a whole lot of variety of things.””As each day in December passes he’s smiling broader and broader. And he’s started doing a few more public appearances, so he was a guest at a breakfast this morning and he’s happy to talk openly about it because he’s learnt so much himself.”He’s probably had an easier road than the other two because he’s been very set and we’ve been very set in how to go about it. So he hasn’t chased other tournaments around the world. He’s worked with the squad and to be fair he’s had a contract so he’s had obligations as well.”Matthews believes there has been more public sympathy for Bancroft compared to Steven Smith and David Warner but said that did not abrogate him from taking responsibility for ball-tampering and then attempting to hide the evidence.”He was new into it I think he was widely seen as much a victim as a perpetrator in the whole thing,” Matthews said. “I think he was naïve and desperate to belong and so he was caught in a position of what to do and I think that the real indictment you know that when your captain kind of knows what’s going on and doesn’t stop it and your vice-captain is involved you sort of go where do you go?”Now he says, and we’ve said the whole time, his responsibility was to say no but for whatever reason he felt he couldn’t. But he’s done everything he can since to take responsibility and make the most of it.”So I think he’s learned a lot about himself and what he stand for and he will forever be – I don’t know if embarrassed is the right word – but he’ll forever have to live with it no matter how good his career is or how bad his career is but there’s no doubt he’ll bounce back.”
