THE JAMES SUTHERLAND ERA
PLAYED four first-class matches for Victoria, and was 12th man in Victoria’s Sheffield Shield win in 1990-91. TOOK over as boss of the thenAustralian Cricket Board, 2001.
THE HIGHS
THE introduction of the Big Bash League in 2011 and the Women’s Big Bash League in 2015. AUSTRALIA jointly hosting the 2015 World Cup with NZ. CRICKET participation numbers in Australia growing from about 400,000 to 1.4 million, including a near 10-fold increase in female participation. REVENUE increasing nearly 10fold from about $50 million in 2001 to about $500 million. SIGNING a six-year broadcast deal with the Seven Network and Fox Sports worth nearly $1.2 billion, ending a 40-year relationship with the Nine Network.
THE LOWS
12-MONTH suspension handed to star spinner Shane Warne for testing positive to a banned substance in February 2003.
THE 2008 “Monkey-gate” scandal, where Australian players were furious that Sutherland didn’t back them more after Andrew Symonds accused Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh of calling him a monkey.
THE 2011 Argus Review after an embarrassing 3-1 Ashes series loss, leading to the hiring of Pat Howard as high performance manager. “HOMEWORK-GATE” saw Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja, James Pattinson and vice-captain Shane Watson suspended for not completing a written task set by coach Mickey Arthur. ARTHUR was sacked as Australian coach two weeks before the 2013 Ashes, after the national team was eliminated in the group stage in the Champions Trophy and suffered a 4-0 Test series loss to India. PHILLIP Hughes was fatally struck with a cricket ball during a Sheffield Shield match in November 2014. An inquest into the 25-year-old’s death found it was a “tragic accident”. SUTHERLAND was criticised for being very low-key in the longrunning and, at times, bitter pay dispute between CA and its players in 2017. THE 2018 South African balltampering scandal left Cricket Australia red-faced and led to Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft copping bans from international cricket.