Australia spinner Steve O'Keefe considers India's air quality better than THIS city's

Former New South Wales skipper Stephen O'Keefe has called for attention to rules regarding play over air quality that Cricket Australia has put into place. The issue came up after he helped his side win their latest Sheffield Shield encounter against Queensland. The air quality in Sydney was so bad that during the match, one could barely see the ball.

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Australia: Play continues in Sydney despite horror smog

According to reports, the New South Wales state is currently facing 80 bush fires and the resulting smoke has made the air quality almost 11 times more than "hazardous" levels. The Sheffield Shield game between NSW and Queensland saw direct consequences of this as the visibility was extremely poor at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG). After the game, O'Keefe talked to the media and insisted that air quality is an issue which Cricket Australia (CA) must take seriously.

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A concerned O'Keefe mentioned how children cannot step out of the house if such conditions prevailed, so playing cricket gets all the more tougher. The spinner also commended the Queensland side for going on with the game even when the visibility hampered their ability to bat well. O'Keefe had figures of 4-71 in the game. The left-arm spinner was the star in Australia's only Test win in India during the 2010s, having taken 12 wickets in the Pune Test of 2017, increasing his popularity in the cricketing world.

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Interestingly, O'Keefe believes that Sydney's air quality is worse than that of many places in India. India is a country which is notoriously known to have cities of poor air quality such as New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, especially during the winter season. Here is the footage from the Australian domestic game to know how it panned out.

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