'Have some nuts': Thunder coach blasts Heat, umpires over blackout farce

Shane Bond has slammed the handling of the Gabba’s blackout fiasco, describing it as a bad look for the Big Bash League.

The Sydney Thunder coach and former New Zealand fast bowler demanded a review of the unsafe play rule that almost certainly robbed his side of a point and a move to second place on Thursday night.

Brisbane’s faltering chase of 187 was cut short at 2-10 after three overs when an east Brisbane power outage sent half of the stadium, including two light towers, into darkness.

A maiden BBL century for Shane Watson had put the Thunder in complete control and with Chris Lynn and Brendon McCullum already in the sheds the two points looked headed the visitor’s way.

But with five overs needed in the run chase to constitute a game points were split, before power cruelly returned just four minutes after play was abandoned.

Bond and Watson had earlier argued that conditions were still safe for play, offering to bowl spinners for the duration of the innings if need be.

“It’s a bad look for the competition; there needs to be some reflection or review around unfair play and application of the rules around that,” Bond said, before indicating that the club may protest the decision to split the points.

“We’ve been told we’ll play in wet weather and rain for as long as we can, that’s not deemed unsafe … then we have a situation with a light tower out and it’s been handed off to the opposition (to make a call).

“People want to see cricket, they don’t turn up here to see officials making phone calls and not having the nuts to make a decision.”

Bond was also critical of Heat coach Daniel Vettori, saying it would have been different if roles were reversed.

“We’ve said in good faith we’d only bowl our spinners. We think it’s safe enough to play. The word is for us that Brisbane had to agree to it, they’ve said no, obviously being in trouble,” Bond said during the delay.

“We’ve said, we will just bowl our spinners because we want a game of cricket and clearly we are in a strong position, so at this point of time the umpires have said, ‘look we’re going to lean with Brisbane, we think it’s unsafe’.

“I think it’s poor. The lights are fine, in terms of the boundary, it’s particularly the middle, we’ve said we will bowl only spin. We want to play a game of cricket.

“From his (Daniel Vettori’s) point of view, if we were in the same boat and we were offered the same thing, we would probably say ‘yep’.

Vettori said the umpires had asserted conditions weren’t safe as he detailed a slightly different version of events to that of his former New Zealand teammate.

Vettori agreed those with vested interest in the result shouldn’t be involved in the management of the game but did offer more sympathy for officials.

“You’ve got to cut them some slack; a light tower went out on a city-wide grid, what are they supposed to do?” he said.

“We can’t give them control most of the time and take it back when we want to.

“I’d like to think if we were in a similar situation (to the Thunder) we’d take a pragmatic position.”

with AAP