Former Australia opener Michael Slater has been stripped of his Cricket NSW Hall of Fame status and had his life membership revoked following a series of domestic violence offences that culminated in a four-year prison sentence earlier this year. The dramatic step was confirmed at a Cricket NSW general meeting on Monday evening, drawing a definitive line under the former Test star’s fall from grace.
Members and delegates endorsed a board-backed motion to remove all honours granted to Slater, nearly a decade after he was first recognised by the state body. He was inducted into the Cricket NSW Hall of Fame in 2015 and made a life member in 2016, rewards for a distinguished career as a dashing opening batter across 74 Tests and 42 ODIS between 1993 and 2001.
The move comes after repeated and serious domestic violence cases involving the 55-year-old. Slater was sentenced in April 2025 in Queensland’s Maroochydore District Court to four years’ imprisonment, with the terms partly suspended after time alread served in custody. He pleaded guilty to multiple offences, including choking, assault, burglary and stalking a woman on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. The sentencing judge explicitly linked his behaviour to alcoholism, warning that rehabilitation “will not be easy.”
Those convictions followed years of escalating legal trouble in New South Wales and Queensland. Since 2016, at least five women in NSW have taken out protection orders against Michael Slater, while earlier matters saw him convicted of domestic violence-related offences and harassment in Sydney courts.
Reports say Slater had written to Cricket NSW asking to retain his life membership, but members still voted to rescind it, reflecting a hardened stance on off-field conduct and violence against women. With the decision, he is removed from an honours list that includes Mark Taylor, Belinda Clark, Glenn McGrath, Brett Lee, Lisa Sthalekar, and the Waugh brothers, underlining the symbolic weight of the sanction.
On the field, Slater was once one of Australia’s most recognisable cricketers, scoring more than 5,000 Test runs at an attacking tempo and later becoming a prominent television commentator before his broadcasting contracts were terminated in 2021. Off the field, however, the accumulation of domestic violence offences has now cost him not only his liberty for a time, but also the highest honours his home state could bestow.
