Waugh quits as selector to join Fox Sports line-up
MARK Waugh will quit as an Australian selector to concentrate on his burgeoning commentary career with Fox Sports.
The former Test great joined the national panel back in 2014, and as the current selection Chairman for the Australian Twenty20 side, he has served as one of the most influential voices in the game.
However, News Corp un- derstands Waugh is set to finish in his post when his contract expires at the end of the winter.
Losing such an astute reader and analyser of players and the game — as Waugh is — comes as a major blow to Cricket Australia.
Finding high-profile and well-qualified selectors is never easy given so many explayers are earning bigger money in business and the media.
The setback is extenuated by the fact there is a World Twenty20 on Australian soil in the year 2020, and Cricket Australia had revamped the selection panel to put Waugh in charge of that mission.
Appointing a specialist T20 selector was CA’s way of recognising that it had failed to grasp the shortest format in which it has never won a World Cup.
Waugh is taking on a pivotal role on Fox Cricket under the new TV rights deal and his commitments will be more all- encompassing than his previous media work was at Channel 10 when he was only commentating the Big Bash.
It’s expected Waugh will commentate across all Test and international cricket as well as the BBL under his Fox deal and it’s deemed he won’t be able to juggle those commitments with being a national selector.
As the T20 Chairman, Waugh is down to tour with Justin Langer’s Australian side to England and Zimbabwe for a series of internationals in July, but that will be his final hurrah.
Cricket Australia never believed there was a conflict of interest with Waugh working in the media and selecting, arguing that his role watching BBL matches in fact put him at the forefront of the ever-evolving format.
Waugh has acknowledged in the past that combining the two roles has had its challenges, particularly given his forthright style on air.