Cricket: South Australia spectators abuse winning Victorians

Victorian players had coins and a baseball thrown at them by a misbehaving Adelaide Oval crowd on the way to lifting the domestic Twenty20 title from South Australia's grasp.

The Bushrangers complained to the Cricket Australia security manager about the bad behaviour of the 17,722 spectators, who watched their side miss out on another trophy. The drought has now stretched to a 14th year.

Cricket Australia plans to strengthen the security presence at the ground for tomorrow's Australia Day limited-overs match between the national side and Pakistan.

Trouble began around the 15th over of the innings after SA had lost the wickets of Mark Cosgrove and Kieron Pollard to all but hand the game to Victoria.

"It was at a point of the game where the South Australian fans were clearly aware that the nature of the game was such that SA wasn't going to win it," said Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young.

Visiting captain David Hussey returned some of the abuse he received while catching Pollard on the boundary rope to make the game safe, and said he was unhappy his players had been targeted on a night that was otherwise a firm reinforcement of Victoria's depth and big-occasion temperament.

"They were quite boisterous. I'm a little bit disappointed, let's just say that," Hussey said. "They threw a few coins at the players, which I'm disappointed about.

"But we came here with a purpose and I thought we played pretty much perfect cricket."

This year's domestic T20 tournament has seen a succession of huge crowds totalling 308,590 spectators, and SA's home matches were witnessed by packed houses, albeit at reduced capacity.

But the poor behaviour during the latter part of the final was denounced by the SA cricket association.

"We certainly don't condone that sort of behaviour at all," a SACA spokesman said.

Victoria have now won four of the five domestic T20 tournaments.

- AAP