Cricket Australia launches uncensored history

Cricket Australia has released a warts-and-all history of the way it has governed cricket for the past century, including frank accounts of the board's behaviour in several controversial areas. Inside Story: Unlocking Australian Cricket's Archives, which was launched in Melbourne on Monday, draws on previously unseen documents including minutes of board meetings, as well as new interviews with key power-brokers.

The book's authors Gideon Haigh and David Frith were given access to all of Cricket Australia's historical records and Haigh said he was impressed that there was no pressure from Cricket Australia to leave out the most sensitive material. "There are things [in the book] I would have died in a ditch to protect but the issue never came up, they got waved through [by Cricket Australia]," Haigh said.

Richie Benaud, who wrote the book's foreword, said he paid particular attention to the chapters that covered the period when he was directly involved in the game and quickly discovered it was a book "without fear or favour". "There are entries that are remarkable not only in their clarity but are also remarkable for the fact that they're in there at all," Benaud said.

The board's dealings with apartheid-era South Africa, World Series Cricket, chucking controversies and match fixing are among the many sensitive topics covered. Although plenty has already been written about these subjects, Inside Story is unique in shedding light on how the Australian board discussed and handled the situations behind closed doors.

"The debate around the board table was that a full and frank history might cause some short-term discomfort in some areas but Australian cricket was too important to too many for us to be satisfied with a vanity publication that pulled its punches," Creagh O'Connor, the current Cricket Australia chairman said. "We ask the cricketers who wear the baggy green to play hard but fair and it was only logical to ask our historians to do the same."