Sheffield Shield: Tasmanian players confront Hilton Cartwright after WA batter leaves to welcome child

Fuming Tasmanian players confronted Hilton Cartwright at the end of their Sheffield Shield match on Wednesday after the West Australian batter left to welcome his second child and returned to the crease.

Cartwright found himself in a heated exchange with Tigers batter Jake Weatherald, which drew the ire of umpires and other players, after Western Australia sealed their six-wicket victory at the WACA Ground.

The WA batter retired on 52 on Monday and raced to hospital to be with his wife Tameka, who was induced and gave birth to their second child in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

He returned to the crease on Monday and added 13 runs to his tally.

On Wednesday, Cartwright batted for a second time in the match and steered WA to victory with a score of 39. But his innings was littered with outbursts from Tasmanian fielders.

Weatherald and his captain Jordan Silk were spoken to by umpires during play.

Under current laws, the opposition captain and match referee must agree to approve a retired batter’s return to the crease, but Wednesday’s incident has led to calls for those regulations to be changed.

It is understood Tasmania took some time to shake hands on Cartwright returning and not all players were on board with the call.

Cartwright said his conversation with Weatherald post-match was to “clear the air”.

“Obviously it is a competitive game of cricket and emotions are pretty high whilst you’re out there,” he said.

“A few things are said while you’re out there, it was just clearing some air that I think might have got a bit misjudged while we were out there and we were able to clear what happened over the last couple of days.”

Asked what he thought of the call to allow Cartwright to return, Tasmanian bowler Kieran Elliot said: “I might leave my opinion on the process to those above my pay-grade, to be honest”.

“Any situation where you have got personal affairs such as a birth — congratulations to him obviously — without being entirely across what was discussed, if he was out, great result for us he is obviously a class player and for him to come back and get a few more away before we eventually got him in that first innings was important for them.

“That’s the game, we made our call. It is part of the game those decisions I think, so I’m just going to live with it.

“You get two competitive teams together I think there is always going to be a degree of tension, we come and we like to play hard cricket and obviously the ‘WACAs’ have been the gold standard for a couple of years now.

“Any clash between two teams that are trying to be the best is always going to come away with tension. I don’t think it was particularly to do with that, just a couple of competitive trips going hard.”

WA captain Sam Whiteman has called for laws around retiring batters to be taken out of the hands of the captains.

“It’s a pretty unique situation and I think probably the laws of the game need to change a little bit to take the decision off the captains,” he said.

“That will be discussed in the post-match, but at the end of the day the right decision was made and credit to Tassie for letting Hilts come back out and bat and that’s the right decision for the game of cricket.”

Cartwright said he gave Silk a thumbs-up as he returned to the crease on Tuesday, but the hostility first reared its head when he was dismissed by Riley Meredith, who gave him a spray as he left the field.

The 32-year-old told Adam Voges about his situation on Monday morning and a decision was made for his wife Tameka to be induded that afternoon.

Tasmania were made aware of it at the innings break during the middle session and Cartwright left at tea.

At the crease off just one hour of sleep, Cartwright joked he had “not a whole heap” going through his mind.

“I wasn’t thinking too much about the game, my mind was a bit elsewhere — don’t tell the coach that because it’s probably not great if I’d nicked one early — my focus was on getting through to tea so I could give the team an opportunity to bat later,” he said.

“I was basically running off adrenaline and caffeine the whole day. It didn’t hit me honestly until I got to the hospital yesterday evening.”