When Shane Bond swore at NZ Cricket boss over ICL ultimatum
By ANIWednesday, October 27, 2010
WELLINGTON - Former New Zealand fast bowler Shane Bond has revealed that he swore at New Zealand Cricket boss Justin Vaughan when the latter told him his national team contract would be torn up if he continued to play in the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL).
“I admit I lost it a bit here, and, for the first and only time, I swore at Justin,” stuff.co.nz quoted Bond, as saying about that incident.
Bond is reported to have told Vaughan: “You’re telling me my international career is over because you’ve f…ed up?”
It was the moment it dawned on Bond that his decision to secure the financial future of wife Tracey and three children had backfired, and that he might never play for his country again.
Bond devotes two chapters of his new book, Shane Bond, Looking Back, to the bitter dispute with NZC, and fallout with Vaughan, after he signed with the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League in late 2007.
According to the book, Bond agreed to be available for all his New Zealand international commitments, and received written confirmation from Vaughan that he was free to sign.
At that stage, Bond decided to retire from test cricket to extend his injury-plagued international career, and received enthusiastic responses from Vaughan and then-coach John Bracewell. Then the mood at NZC changed.
“The next call I received from Justin began ominously: ‘Shane, we have a problem’,” Bond wrote.
The meeting with Vaughan was tense as he told Bond an ICC regulation prevented NZC from releasing him to play in the ICL.
“You can’t play, we can’t pick you, you’re an ICL player,” the book quotes Vaughan as saying.
Bond wrote: “I tried to reason with Justin. ‘What do you mean? I’ve just played in South Africa as an ICL player and, if I hadn’t got injured, I would be playing in Australia, as we speak, as an ICL player. What has changed?”‘
Vaughan’s response: “People now know you’ve signed.” (ANI)
