Thunderstruck by umps’ no result call, Sydney turn up heat on CA
WE are in the presence of greatness.
Indian captain Virat Kohli might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but his record is amazing.
He is 30 years of age, extremely fit and showing no signs of slowing down.
The comparisons are already being made with the greatest Indian batsmen of all the time, Sachin Tendulkar.
It’s always difficult to compare players from different eras, although these two are linked pretty close together.
Their careers actually crossed over as international players for a few years when Sachin was in his twilight and Virat was still emerging.
It was a clear case of the master and his apprentice.
Both brilliant in their own right, both beautifully technically correct players.
To watch either of them bat in full flight is poetry in motion. The hardest shot in cricket to play is the on drive. It is only the truly great players who can repeatedly execute this stroke.
Tendulkar was the best I’ve ever seen playing down the ground. His bat plane was exquisite. He met the oncoming ball with the full face of the FURIOUS Sydney Thunder boss Lee Germon has appealed to Cricket Australia to award his team full points after the farcical ending to Thursday night’s Big Bash match against the Brisbane Heat at the Gabba.
The Thunder were in total control after Shane Watson smashed his first BBL century to lift his side to 4-186.
The Heat collapsed to 2-10 after three overs when half the stadium lights went out because of a power outage in the surrounding streets.
The match was eventually abandoned and declared a no result when Brisbane Heat coach Daniel Vettori rejected an offer from the Thunder to only bowl spinners to elimin- ate any safety concerns, prompting an unimpressed Thunder coach Shane Bond to describe the umpires as “weak”.
“They didn’t make a decision, they fobbed it off to Brisbane and of course they were never going to play because they were in the crap,” Bond said. “One of the big bugbears of the competition is the inconsistencies around rulings and decision-making by the umpires and match referees.
“If we were in the same boat we wouldn’t have played, I 100 per cent understand what Dan did but they (the umpires) didn’t want to make a decision and for me, that’s pretty weak.”
The teams were awarded one point each but Germon has asked Cricket Australia to award his team two points and the victory because the Heat should have done more to ensure the lights came back on.
“I have already made a phone call to Cricket Australia and I will be escalating that to Cricket Australia in terms of determining why this happened and what should be the outcome,” he said.
“My view is that we should get the points.”
Cricket Australia has attempted to quell the frus- tration of fans who attended the clash by offering them a free ticket to next week’s pinkball Test.
While announcing the ticket offer yesterday, Cricket Australia’s fan engagement boss Anthony Everard said it was working with Stadiums Queensland to ensure there was no repeat at next week’s day-night Test.