Bangalore, October 18: Cape Cobras captain Andrew Puttick admitted that Herschelle Gibbs pulled out of the match against Victoria Bushrangers due to security fears and said the opener wasn’t mentally prepared to play in such an environment.
The Champions League match between Victoria and Cobras was delayed after a Jammu and Kashmir cricket Parvez Rasoul, who was staying here at the Karnataka State Cricket Association complex in the Chinnaswamy Stadium, was detained in connection with the suspected presence of explosives at the venue. But later he was released after questioning, following which the authorities gave the go-ahead for the match.
”It was his personal decision,” Puttick said of Gibbs’ decision to opt out. ”He felt he was not mentally up for the game after what happened.” The Victorians were clearly not at their best as the bomb scare was playing on their minds.
Puttick said it was left to the individual players to make up their mind about whether to play or not and after a team meeting which preceded the match, it was decided that the majority was willing to play. ”There was lots of confusion initially,” he said adding, ”It was a really a difficult situation as there were lots of reports flying around. As for Gibbs, we as a team respected the decision. If you are not comfortable, then there is no use playing.” However, Gibbs’ absence hardly had an effect on the Cobras and the South African team was on the button right from the start, as they claimed the first two Victorian wickets in the very first over of the match.
”I am really proud about how the guys turned up today and were able to focus quickly. I didn’t have to say anything special to the team; maybe we all thought what more can happen, ‘let’s just go and play the game,” Puttick said at the post-match conference.
Victorian skipper Cameron White meanwhile, did admit that the whole episode that happened before the match wasn’t an ideal preparation.
”We don’t know whether it affected our performance or not. But it wasn’t ideal. We didn’t even know whether we were going to ground at one point. We just got the news from the TV initially but were quickly given a briefing later. ”Obviously we were reluctant to come at one point of time but once our security company gave us the full details and assured us about the security we decided to come to ground. We will have sit down in the next couple of days and see whether we let the incident affect our focus.”
—–Agencies