Sheffield Shield | No bad blood between Victoria and South Australia, insists Travis Head
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The South Australian Captain asserted that there was no bad blood between his side and Victoria after the two put on a marathon batting effort, with the game ending as a draw. 1287 runs were scored in the four-day game and just eleven wickets were taken, with neither team going for the win.
Junction Oval witnessed a rather mundane draw as both Victoria and South Australia just kept on batting, neither going for a win. Peter Handscomb expressed his displeasure towards Head not trying to win the match - by setting a target for Victoria to set up a last-day chase - by taking a dig at South Australia's poor domestic record. But South Australian skipper Travis Head has cleared out that there was no bad blood between the two teams and that mutual respect was shown throughout the game from both sides.
"I don't think there's bad blood," Head told cricket.com.au.
"I know (Pete) said yesterday that they normally beat us. That was probably the only thing that annoyed us. That annoyed me. I've got a lot of respect for the Victorians and what they've been able to achieve. They've had the wood over us β¦ but we've played two Shield finals against them," he added.
Victoria head coach Andrew McDonald had his say in this matter and said that it was a great offer that Handscomb gave to Head, but Head was well within his rights to deny the offer and that there was nothing wrong in denying it. Handscomb insisted on giving South Australia a target of 300-320 on the final day but Head wanted to reach 350. In the end, the offer fell through as no one was satisfied.
"Usually you've got one team that wants to tango and push (for a result) because they might be behind the game. But two teams in a position of strength couldn't come to an (agreement) in terms of a run chase," said McDonald.
"To me, both teams are entitled to play the game in the way they want to β full respect for that they did and full respect for the way we kept toiling this morning," he added.
He believes that his bowlers are in great form this season and that they are the main reason for Victoria being unbeaten in the last nine games. He said that they gave their best but the pitch just had nothing that supported the efforts put in by the fast bowlers. In fact, the pitch was so lifeless that James Pattinson started bowling off-spin at one point in time!
"It was a bit of a standoff in terms of tactics. Our fast bowling group has been amazing over a period of time and we've been able to manage them and get them through a season and that probably wasn't the time to break them on a surface that didn't offer much for them," he said.
In the end, McDonald also managed to light a spark in the rivalry between the two teams by saying that he does not feel there was anything wrong with what Handscomb said and that he backs the offer given by him. It will be interesting to see where this rivalry goes from here.
"I'm going to support Pete in that decision. You can pick holes in whether it's a good look for the game or not," he signed off.
