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 No point playing Australian captain says team feared for their lives
Posted: Tuesday April 27, 1999 10:25 AM
SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Steve Waugh said his team feared for their lives as spectators hurled bottles onto the field during their seventh and final one-day international against West Indies in Barbados on Sunday. One bottle narrowly missed the Australian captain's head as he and his team ran to the dressing room. Play was halted for 45 minutes. Waugh told reporters: "Once again, we go back to saying it's only a matter of time before somebody gets killed. It's right, it will happen." The incident came four days after spectators invaded the pitch in the closing moments of the fifth match in Georgetown, preventing Australia's last pair from scoring a third run to level the scores. That game was declared a tie by match referee Raman Subba Row. The Australian Cricket Board (ACB) on Monday described the latest incidents as unacceptable and said chief executive Malcolm Speed would be pressing West Indies for answers and raising the issue of players' safety at an International Cricket Council (ICC) meeting next month. "Any event where player safety is put at risk is a grave concern," ACB spokesman Michael Hogan said. The trouble on Sunday erupted following the controversial dismissal of West Indian opener Sherwin Campbell, who was run out after colliding with bowler Brendon Julian in mid-pitch. Play resumed after a meeting between Subba Row, the Australian and West Indies team managements and local officials, at which it was decided to reinstate Campbell. "The option was to recall Sherwin and get the game going or not to have a game at all," Waugh was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press. Waugh said the outcome of the match, which West Indies won by eight wickets to tie the series at 3-3, was irrelevant. "We didn't have any guarantees for our safety if the game was called off. The police said it would be a much worse situation if we didn't go back out to play, so we had no choice in the matter." He said one bottle missed his head by less than a foot. "It's just pure luck that someone didn't get hit on the head," he said. "The result was irrelevant, cricket once again was the loser. As players we went out and tried to do the right thing and get a game going but nobody's heart was in it, we were worried about our safety. "I'm sort of at a loss for words because I'm just so disappointed with what's happened in the last couple of games." He added: "If it keeps going like this, there's no point playing." Hogan said Australia were unlikely to return to Guyana unless security improved dramatically following the ground invasion there during the fifth one-dayer. "We won't be going back to Guyana unless things change," Hogan told AAP. Waugh added: "The Windies were fantastic in accepting the result in Guyana and we did the good thing here by playing the game. "If we didn't play the game today we take the series 3-2, we take the trophy, take the money and take the car so I think it was a pretty fair effort to go back out there." Australian Prime Minister John Howard also condemned the crowd's behavior. "I think it is quite distressing that mob violence and mob intimidation can have an impact on the result of a game," Howard told reporters in Canberra. "It does appear from what I heard that the umpire's decision was altered as a result of threats by the crowd and an indication that physical safety could not be guaranteed...Sports administrators around the world have got to show more leadership on these issues." The Australian Cricketers' Association said it wanted all international grounds to have a security rating, with president Tim May saying he was disgusted but not surprised at the bottle throwing. May said that grounds that do not meet security standards should be prevented from hosting matches and called on the ICC to take action.
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