Australia spinner Steve O’Keefe, fresh from his heroics in India, has been charged with a fine of $20,000 for making “highly inappropriate comments” in a state of inebriation at New South Wales’ end-of-season event, Cricket Australia said in a statement on Friday. In addition to the fine, the left-arm spinner has also been dropped from the Matador Cup by the state side.
“There is no time or place for unacceptable behaviour from any of our players in Australian Cricket, and we continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to this,” Cricket Australia’s head of team performance, Pat Howard, was quoted as saying. “We’re extremely disappointed this situation occurred, particularly on the back of a previous incident, and it now overshadows Stephen’s on field performance on the recent tour of India.”
O’Keefe finished with 19 wickets in the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar series, which included a match haul of 12/70 in Pune to set up a 333-win for Australia in the opening Test.
O’Keefe apologises
The Hong Kong-born tweaker issued an “unconditional apology” for his act, and shed light on turn of events at the NSW event. “At an official Cricket NSW function, I became intoxicated and made highly inappropriate comments,” O’Keefe said. “There is no excuse for this and I take full responsibility and offer an unconditional apology. I accept the sanctions imposed by Cricket Australia and Cricket NSW, and welcome the chance to receive specialist counselling,” he added.
In August 2016, O’Keefe was slapped with a fine of $10,000 by CA and issued with an “infringement notice” by NSW Police for alleged offensive behaviour and for trespassing in the vicinity of licensed premises after a night at The Steyne Hotel in the suburb of Manly.
“I have a big challenge ahead and I am determined to meet it with actions, not just words,” the 32-year-old said. “To all of the members of the cricket family I love and respect so much, again, apologies for letting you down.”