The Emporor Tills has teased me many times about my blind batting and the need for bells inside the ball. Now I discover that there is a national blind cricket team that play with balls containing bells and even play their version of the Ashes. Like the real thing, controvosy is never far away, as an adapted report from The Australian newspapaer website shows.

‘LONG-SIMMERING tensions between Australian and English cricketers have boiled over amid complaints by the Australians that the top player in England's blind cricket team has better sight than the English say he has.

The Australian Blind Cricket Council is expected to lodge a complaint about English all-rounder Nathan Foy with the World Blind Cricket Council after the Blind Cricket Ashes series ends in Sydney today.

Foy helped his team to take a two-nil lead in the four-match series when he scored 100 runs in the second game last Sunday. Because he is classified B1, the most serious of three gradings of visual impairment in blind cricket, Foy's score was doubled to 200, giving England 324 runs and a 54-run win over Australia.

Sydney magistrate Christine Haskett, whose nephew Mark Haskett is a member of the Australian team, said she watched play as Foy entered and left the field unassisted, threw the ball accurately during fielding and hit the ball repeatedly while batting. "Our concern is that the English side appears to have an unfair advantage," Ms Haskett said.

Coulton, a representive of the ABCC told The Australian newspaper there was no evidence that Foy had been wrongly graded a B1 player.

"Foy is a good player with tonnes of ability and sometimes the relatives of our players can get a bit emotional," Coulton said.

Coulton said representations to the World Blind Cricket Council were likely to be made after the tour.

Coulton said he had raised the Australians' reservations with English team manager Ian Martin.

Martin said no approaches had been made to him. He added that Foy had been classified as B1 by the World Blind Cricket Council. The grading meant he was essentially sightless.

"At most, a B1 player could pick out shadows," Martin said.

On the Ashes website, Foy says he has scored seven 100s and four 50s in 28 international innings.

"I have exceptional hearing, which allows me to hear the ball bearings inside the ball even in the air sometimes," he says.

"Coupled with quick reactions and an amazing skill to know where I am in the outfield, I have become an accomplished fielder without sight."

Foy lists one of his interests as watching American football.

England won the third match on Tuesday at Penrith's Howell Oval in Sydney, snaring the Blind Ashes series 3-0, with one match remaining today at Bankstown Oval’.

As the story shows, a blind batsmens score should be doubled. Perhaps mine should be from now on. Love that line about the bloke watching American football.

Its good omens for KP’s England team next year as the womens team and blind side won their respective Ashes in the months before the classic 2005 series win