DAVID HUSSEY wishes he had let the ball hit him on the head during Sunday night's ''handling the ball'' dispute with India, but believes he was entitled to palm it away to protect himself. He still ended up with a headache. Hussey said he would have accepted the umpire's decision had he been given out for sticking out his hand to stop a throw during the tense match at the SCG, and understood the Indian team's grievance, but he also believed common sense prevailed when he was given a reprieve.

''I was just trying to protect myself. I probably should have just let the ball hit me and then the whole situation would have been less frustrating. I can see how the Indians are frustrated with the decision but … there was no malice in stopping the ball or preventing me from being run out,'' Hussey told the Herald yesterday.

''I just saw it and thought, 'Oh no, it's going to hit me in the head,' and I just put my hand up to stop the ball. Looking back on it, you can see both sides of the argument, you could probably give me out, not a problem, but then on the flipside, I was just protecting myself. It was probably a critical moment in the game, too, so it would have been nice just to take all the emotion out of it. I thought common sense prevailed in the end.'' Hussey, the leading scorer in the triangular series, continued his excellent one-day form with 54 runs from 64 balls.

Running a single, Hussey lifted his hand to block Suresh Raina's throw. Indian captain M.S. Dhoni appealed for either handling the ball or obstructing the field, and later said the batsman should have been out, ''plain and simple''. ''That four minutes [while the third umpire deliberated] felt like about half an hour. I thought the umpires actually handled it very, very well. They kept their cool and they worked through it and saw both sides of the argument,'' Hussey said.

''The disappointing thing is you don't want the players attacking other players because it's purely in the umpire's hands and cricket is a very emotional game. Both teams wanted to desperately win, and we were trying to qualify for the finals and so were the Indians, so you can see they were aggrieved. You just move on, hopefully quickly.'' Hussey came under fire from the Indian fielders after the incident. But he said he spoke to Dhoni after the match and the pair had ''smoothed things over''.

Hussey said the rule was not entirely clear. ''It's a bit of a grey rule. My understanding of the rule is I was just protecting myself so I should be given the benefit of the doubt. However, you're not meant to handle the ball, either, so it could go both ways. If I had been given out I would have accepted the umpire's decision and would have been disappointed in my actions,'' he said. Cricket laws suggest Hussey could have been out under Law 33 for handling the ball, but there is a sub-clause that allows the batsman to touch the ball in order to ''avoid injury''.