Australian Test cricketer Michael Slater is arrested over domestic violence claims

Australian Test cricket great Michael Slater has been arrested over an alleged domestic violence incident.

The 51-year-old was spoken to by police at a home in Manly, in Sydney’s northern beaches, early on Wednesday morning and has been taken to the Manly Police Station.

No charges have been laid.

NSW Police said officers are investigating an incident that allegedly occurred last Tuesday, October 12.   

‘Following inquiries, detectives attended a home at Manly about 9.20am and spoke with a 51-year-old man,’ a police spokesman said. 

‘He has since been arrested and taken to Manly Police Station.’ 

The cricket commentator was recently axed from his Channel Seven job following a public attack on Scott Morrison over Twitter. 

In May he controversially accused Mr Morrison of having ‘blood on his hands’ for closing the border to Australians stuck in Covid-ravaged India.

The retired opening batsman told the PM in a series of tweets to get on his private jet and ‘come and witness dead bodies on the street’. 

‘Amazing to smoke out the PM on a matter that is a human crisis. The panic, the fear of every Australian in India is real!! How about you take your private jet and come and witness dead bodies on the street!’

Many have blamed Slater’s behaviour on social media for costing him his job with Channel 7, causing his 20 year cricket commentary career to come to a grinding halt. 

Speaking after the incident, the former batsman said he was ‘completely overwhelmed’ and did not mean to be ‘disrespectful’. 

‘The tweets came from a place of sheer desperation and wanting to get home to crying kids worried about their father,’ Slater told The Courier Mail earlier this month.

‘It got very emotional. We got to Ahmedabad and we went past a Covid testing site. We’d see all these dead bodies on the side of the road. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It was so horribly confronting.

‘If I had my time again, bearing in mind it could have had a link to what’s just happened to me at Channel 7, no I wouldn’t do it again.’

Slater, who was working as a commentator for the IPL, had been a fierce critic of Australia’s policy banning its citizens in India from coming home. 

Two years ago, Slater was kicked off a flight following an argument with two female friends.

More to come. 

The 51-year-old was spoken to by police at a home in Manly, in Sydney’s northern beaches, early on Wednesday morning and has been taken to the Manly Police Station. No charges have been laid