After debuting for Australia at 28, former batter Michael Hussey went on to craft a decorated career spanning across nine years. A terrific fielder always reliable to take a catch under any amount of pressure on most occasions, Hussey experienced the most embarrassing moment of his career after dropping a catch at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
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During a Big Bash League 2020/21 commentary stint alongside Isa Guha and the late Andrew Symonds for Fox Cricket, Hussey had revealed how dropping former South African fast bowler Dale Steyn had proved too costly for him personally.
The moment occurred during the first innings of the second Test match against South Africa in 2008 when Hussey dropped a sitter to hand a game-changing reprieve to Steyn. Chasing Australia’s 394, South Africa were at 320/8 when Steyn advanced down the track to unsuccessfully loft Nathan Hauritz in the air.
Hussey, who was fielding at mid-on, completely lost the ball under the sun despite wearing shades to block its rays. He pranced and danced around back and forth to get under the line of the ball but to no avail. Watching his movements carefully, this didn’t sit well with the merciless Bay 13 crowd behind him as they didn’t shy away from putting him in a position of discomfiture.
“The most embarrassing moment I’ve ever had on a cricket field right there, and I did not know that was coming. Bay 13 are right behind me and they were yelling out all kinds of things – ‘You want a bag, you want a bag to catch the next one’. I just wanted to dig a hole and bury myself,” Hussey told Fox Cricket.
Michael Hussey Dropping Dale Steyn Had Cost Australia Boxing Day Test
Apart from a personal moment of shame, Hussey’s blunder also brought disrepute to the Aussies who not only lost the match and but also their first Test series against the Proteas at home.
Steyn, who was batting at 33* at the time, went on to score a career-best 76 (191) in a match-winning 180-run ninth-wicket (third-highest ninth-wicket stand in Test cricket back in the day) partnership alongside JP Duminy, who had scored a career-best 166 (340). From what could’ve been a healthy lead had the visitors been bundled out soon after Hussey’s presumable catch, South Africa went on to pile up another 139 runs thereon.
In what ended up being his only Melbourne Test, Steyn bagged his only Player of the Match award down under (third overall) for also registering career-best match bowling figures of 10/154.
Michael Hussey, on the other hand, had flopped with the bat in hand as well. He scored 0 (9) and 2 (8) in both innings of the match to further justify spectators booing him. To add more salt to his wound, it was Steyn who had dismissed him in the first innings.
