SA ends 45-year wait for blind cricket national title

BLIND cricketer Michael Zannis has played in a winning Ashes series and at three World Cups but he ranks helping SA break its national championship drought just as high.

BLIND cricketer Michael Zannis has played in a winning Ashes series and at three World Cups but he ranks helping SA break its national championship drought just as high in his cricketing life.

Zannis, 40, was part of the Croweaters squad that claimed its first Australian title last month – 45 years after SA debuted at the tournament.

SA defeated Queensland in a Twenty20 grand final in Melbourne to take the crown.

Zannis, of Rostrevor, says specialised coaching through the SA Cricket Association has been central to the side’s success.

“We’ve had to fight the population base with the eastern states so we’ve had to be smarter than the rest and improve our skills,” Zannis says.

“The win was a long time coming.”

Blind cricket is played with a ball filled with ballbearings that make a sound similar to a baby’s rattle.

Sides include three blind players, four with up to three per cent vision and another four with up to 10 per cent sight.

Zannis lost his sight after innocuously bumping into a wall at home when he was six.

“I walked inside and asked my mum who turned the TV off and the lights down.

“I was rushed off to hospital and within five minutes had torn the retina off the bone.

“Three days later it’d built up too much pressure in my other eye and blown that out as well.”

Zannis says he initially lost self-confidence but regained it through sport.

He started in athletics and competed at national track and field championships before turning to cricket.

The left-hand batsman made his debut for SA at 17 and received his first Australian call-up for the 1998 World Cup in New Delhi.

He has remained a fixture in both the state and national teams, going to a further two World Cups in India and playing in Australia’s Ashes triumph in 2012.

“I’ve been lucky.

“Cricket has given me a great opportunity to travel the world with people with the same eye condition but the same desire to play sport.”