SACA tried to convince Pollard to sign with the Strikers

Image courtesy of: ESPNcricinfo

The South Australia Cricket Association (SACA) have been fined $50,000 for trying to recruit players outside the Big Bash League’s (BBL) contracting window.

Cricket Australia revealed that SACA approached Brad Hodge, Jonathan Dean and Kieron Pollard in an attempt to convince them to play for the Adelaide Strikers.

With SACA high performance chief Jamie Cox already having been sacked, the association’s chief executive Keith Bradshaw got off with a much lighter penalty. Bradshaw will not be involved with the Strikers  in any way whatsoever for the 2014-15 BBL season.

“SACA has been found to have breached the BBL Player Contracting and Remuneration Guidelines,” Iain Roy, who is the head of Cricket Australia’s integrity unit, said. “We view contraventions of our competition rules seriously and the penalties handed down reflect this.

“Cricket Australia is committed to ensuring the contracting rules for all of CA’s competitions are adhered to at all times. We acknowledge SACA’s co-operation during the course of the unit’s investigation.”

Bradshaw noted that SACA are already taking steps to ensure this sort of incident does not happen again in the future.

“I was advised on 13 May that SACA was under investigation for possible breaches of the BBL contracting rules and we have fully cooperated since that time,” he said. “No other SACA employees have been found to have engaged in conduct breaching the guidelines.

“We are undertaking a thorough and independent review to ensure we have good systems in place going forward to avoid a recurrence. Cricket Australia’s findings do not impact our current negotiations with the relevant players and we hope to be able announce the outcomes of those negotiations very soon.”