Mark (Tubby) Taylor, former Australian XI captain and now Cricket Australia board member made a proper goose of himself at the awards presentation after the Twenty20 Big Bash Final at Sydney's ANZ stadium on Saturday night.
NSW won the match by one one run, thanks to a bye from the last ball of the match.
Victoria batted first and scored 4/166. Opener Rob Quiney scoring a fantastic 91 off 56 balls while recent Test debutant Andrew McDonald hit 30 runs off 29 balls.
NSW's best bowler was Aaron Bird who finished with 3/21 off his 4 overs.
The NSW side incuded the Kiwi ring-in Brendon McCullum who managed to score just 10 off 11 balls.
Although it was a pyjama cricket match, this game produced the goods for players and spectators - it went down to the last ball.
However, the lowlight of the day/evening was Taylor's "gem".
Taylor, whose public speaking skills are not his greatest asset, took to the microphone and announced that the player who made a fantastic contribution for Victoria (Quiney) was not the recipient of the award.
The TV audience sitting comfortably in their lounges at home heard Taylor's words quite clearly, but poor unfortunate Quiney and his Victorian team mates didn't.
Quiney, thinking he'd been announced as the winner of the award, headed off in the direction of Taylor but then Taylor announced that NSW player Ben Rohrer, who hit 44 off 20 balls and steered NSW to victory was the player of the match.
It makes one wonder how often Channel 9 has to hit the idiot button to ensure that idiotic remarks made by Taylor don't go to air. This writer reckons the controller/s of the idiot button must work overtime.
See the match scoreboard here.
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Bill Leak for his pic of Tubby (above) ... www.portrait.gov.au
