Oz opener Hughes says he won’t forgive Botham for calling him a ‘cheat’
By ANIMonday, January 17, 2011
SYDNEY - Australian opener Phillip Hughes has said that he was quite shocked when he was told by skipper Michael Clarke that former England great Ian Botham had called him a cheat for claiming a catch at short-leg of the bat of England opener Alastair Cook.
He said it was unlikely that he would forgive Botham for that verbal slight handed out during the final Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground earlier this month while commentating on the match for Sky Sports.
“Terrible. Cheating. How much do you want it to bounce into your hands? He knows he hasn’t caught it,” Botham had said then.
Hughes said that he was stunned by Botham’s comments when Clarke told him that night.
“I remember Pup came back into the sheds and said, ‘Botham’s called you a cheat’,” Hughes recalled.
“I said, ‘what’s he talking about? What’s going on here?’
“If you saw the replay you could see I wasn’t sure, and I even said to Alastair Cook I wasn’t sure.
People will look back on the incident and know I wasn’t sure. I was a bit shocked by the comments. It doesn’t matter when people say your technique isn’t great, but when you’re called a cheat, it hits you pretty hard,” Fox Sports quoted Hughes, as saying. (ANI)
