Aus vs NZ: Mark Waugh, Michael Vaughan argue furiously over banning 'leg byes' in cricket

Melbourne Stars triumphed over Sydney Thunder on Thursday when they took them on in their Big Bash League 2019-20 match. On the field, Nick Larkin's valiant 65 got the Stars over the line with two balls remaining. While the on-field play went on, as usual, an interesting debate took place in the commentary box.

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Mark Waugh calls for a radical change

The match was being commentated upon by Australian legend Mark Waugh, former England captain Michael Vaughan and cricket commentator Mark Howard. The debate began when the Sydney Thunder were batting in the first innings and batsman Alex Ross took two runs off a ball that clipped his pads. As a reaction to this incident, Waugh proposed the idea that leg-byes should be scrapped from the gentleman's game. Waugh insisted that although the rule has been a part of the game for a very long time, scrapping it makes complete sense. He even jokingly implied that a leg-bye is something that an "ordinary batsman" needed to score runs, back in the 1900s.

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Vaughan, who was disagreeing with Waugh, finally struck back at the Australian game with his typical dry sense of humour. The Brit insisted that Waugh should be inducted into the MCC (the Marleybone Cricket Club, cricket's former governing body) and convinced him about receiving benefits for being its member. Mark Howard interjected at that point and asked Waugh if he thought that byes should be scrapped as well.

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Waugh did not support the idea of byes being scrapped because he felt that if a batsman evades a ball, then he is entitled to do what he wants. Vaughan insisted that the rule is necessary to make the most of the bad balls that the bowlers can bowl sometimes but Mark Waugh remained firm. "The idea is to hit the ball with the bat. If you don't hit it, sorry, you don't get a run.", Waugh firmly stated.

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