Australians and their several ways of sledging or foul play do not surprise anymore. But, this time around Australia’s Women Team’s player Ellyse Perry went a step ahead by obstructing a run of Indian wicketkeeper-batter Sushma Verma. This video will be the latest entrant to Australia’s sledging ‘Wall of Shame’. In the 49th over of India vs Australia fixture on July 12 of ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, Sushma took the aerial route and struck the ball towards square leg but it did not go over the fence, thanks to Nicole Bolton’s acrobatic effort on the boundary. Bolton pushed the ball back to play, while the camera was on her there was something else going on in the middle.
On seeing Bolton’s effort at the boundary and flicking the ball back into play, Sushma went for a couple of runs. She was not looking at Perry at first and bumped into her. It was all okay until now but Perry tried to obstruct Sushma’s way for a while. Sushma soon realised that Perry was doing this deliberately.
Shikha Pandey who was running hard between the wickets trying to get Sushma back at the striker’s end was unaware of what happened. She wanted a second run, Sushma too responded to her call almost immediately and ran back to the striker’s end, in that process she only conceded a single because she had to run one short.
Sushma was unable to get back to the non-strike crease while the Bangladeshi Umpire Sharfuddoula did nothing witnessing everything in front of him.
Though that run could not make any difference as India were beaten comprehensively by 8 wickets and 29 balls to spare. Punam Raut’s belligerent ton went in vain whereas Mithali Raj’s record-breaking knock too did not make much difference. Now, India need to win against New Zealand in the virtual-quarter final of ICC Women’s World Cup 2017.
