Wit and Humour on The Cricket Field

I recently encountered a few articles on sledging. The victory of the English over Ashes has brought unexpected limelight on Paul Nixon. Nixon who initially thought that his selection in team was a practical joke, suddenly became the big cheerleader of the English team and his sledges are suddenly credited with bringing the English some pride back.

His sledges are not typical abuses, rather they are innocent jokes. Alex Brown in Sydney Morning Herald, worried that if such sledging could disturb Austrlia, then what mental toughness they have to play at international level. You can read all his sledges here. My favourite is the one where he confronted Michael Clarke, (who a few months ago, was accused by Chris Gayle for racial abuse). It went like this. When Nixon saw that Clarke had changed the sticker on his bat, he told Clarke, "That old sticker, Michael, it was always lucky for you. The new one's not going to bring you the same luck, wait and you see." When Clarke replied that Nixon was nothing but a club cricketer, Nixon shot back: "How's it going to feel, Michael, to be caught by a club cricketer? You know what, you're going to make a club cricketer's day."Nixon told Clerk,

I am presenting a few humorous sledging and other incidents that have happened on the cricket pitch. There might be errors as I was not personally present on any occasion.

The first incident took place between the great Sir Viv Richards and English international player Greg Thomas, during a county championship match between Glamorgan and Somerset. After managing to beat Richards outside the offstump a few times, an overjoyed Greg told him, “It's red, round and weighs about five ounces, in case you were wondering." It provided enough motivation to Sir Viv and on the next delivery, the ball disappeared outside the ground. Richards approached Greg and replied, “Greg, you know what it looks like. Now go and find it."

Australians have always been champion sledgers, and if sledging was Poetry, Merv Hughes would be Shakespeare. He never fell short of supplying on field entertainment. During one of the tour games, when Australia was visiting South Africa, Hansie Cronje was hitting Australian attack on a flat deck in all the corners. After one of the deliveries, Merv Hugh produced a loud fart that only he could. Quickly he told Cronje, “go on, hit that for six". The big guy delivered another one, in the 1991 Adelaide Test against Pakistan. Hughes was irritated by Javed Miandad’s continuous sledging in Urdu. However, Miandad did make it a point to convey to Hughes that he was calling him a "fat bus conductor". A few balls later, Hughes got his man and as Javed walked past, could not resist shouting "Tickets, please!"

Sledging is not a recent phenomenon. It used to exist even when Cricket was completely a gentlemen’s game. No less than Dr. W.G.Grace also used to produce some on-field gigs. Grace is the founding father of the “Stay there” school, which is still alive thanks to players like Rahul Dravid and Jaques Kallis. Once, he got out cheaply to a bowler. He went up to the bolwer and told him, “they have come to watch me bat, not to watch you bowl.” The legend is that, he went on to play. However, once he himself had to be on the receiving end of gentlemanly wit, non other but of an umpire. It so happened that when the ball knocked off a bail, he replaced it and told the umpire: "Twas the wind which took thy bail off, good sir." The umpire replied: "Indeed, doctor, and let us hope thy wind helps the good doctor on thy journey back to the pavilion."

Apart from these, I would also like to mention two incidents involving English wicket keeper Arthur Wood, who played for his country during 30s. He had an uncanny ability to crack incredible wit. One of his 4 Tests was the world record score, and he came in at about 6-770, and told his batting partner "don't worry, I'm always good in a crisis". Another one from Wood is when Bradman was smashing a spinner in a county game on an earlier tour, and Wood says "don't worry son, you got him two minds - doesn't know whether to hit you for 4 or 6."

However, the champion incident without which no article on sledging is complete, is the one between Zimbabwean bowler Eddo Brandes and Glenn McGrath. After Brandes played & missed at a McGrath delivery during a test match, the Aussie bowler enquired: "Hey Eddo why are you so fat?" Unshaken Brandes replied "Cos every time I make love to your wife she gives me a biscuit."

Kiss of Luck - 1

Hello Friends

The biggest fiesta of Cricket is just a fortnight away. Building upto the world cup, I am starting a couple of regular columns on this blog. The first one being "kiss of luck". Here I will talk about some minor or trivial event changed fortunes of a team. Also, we will discover, more kisses of luck during the tournament as well. Here goes the first one.....

The Rain At Adelaid

Imran Khan was playing his last World cup in 1992. With a desperate ambition to win he started building up the team a year ago. From his own talent hunt he identified batsmen like Amir Sohail and Inzamam-Ul-Haq. Who both turned out to be key players for not just in World cup but for several years to come. However, Pakistan started horribly in the world cup. They lost to West Indies humiliatingly by 10 wickets. When they faced England at Adelaid on 1st March, they were bundled out for 74 runs. One of the lowest team totals in a world cup game. England, one of the favorites of the tournament, were expected to finish the game off without much trouble and rain interrupted. An ill-timed world up with some farcical interruptions of the rain till the end, proved extremely lucky for Pakistan. Despite putting up a pathetic performance, Pakistan walked away with a point. In subsequent matches they were handed comprehensive defeats against India and South Africa. However, they won their last three games (including against both the hosts, Australia and New Zealand), in the end the single point earned in the rain-interrupted game proved crucial and Pakistan booked a place in the semi-finals. In the semi-finals, Inzamam played the innings of his life to turn the match and the fortune of Pakistan. The rest, as all the clichéd writers write, is history…..

Another Revival Saga

If it doesn’t sound too pompous, I would like to call the year 2006 a phoenix year in cricketing terms. Just when everybody thought that Jayasuriya and Ganguly provided with enough material for romantic moments of comebacks, they got the last and the most romantic comeback story from Craig McMillan. Just when everybody thought that Ganguly’s fairytale phoenix act was the highlight, McMillan provided with another romantic story. Today when he blasted a scintillating century off just 67 deliveries he scripted another impressive revival story. His century not only revived his own fortune but also has revived the spirit of Black Caps and has delivered the last blow to deteriorating confidence level of the Aussies.

Ganguly’s saga dominated entire media for obvious reasons. But McMillan’s fall from the top had been equally unbelievable if not sensational. From captaining the Kiwi side at a young age of 24 to losing the place in side and subsequently losing his contract with the cricket board, he actually suffered a lot. His inconsistency was a blemish on his sublime talent. Earlier in his career he played some heroic knocks, some swashbuckling knocks (hitting 26 runs in an over in a test), and some match-saving knocks also (most notably against India at Ahmedabad in 2003). New Zealand’s tour of India in 2003 established him as one of the most valuable players for the New Zealand squad. But after that his decline commenced. So much so that he was left out on Bangladesh and Australia tours in 2004 . When he was ignored for selection due to injuries and poor form after appearing against Australia at home in January 2005, people assumed he was forgotten for good. Emergence of Jacob Oram as a hard hitting all-rounder, Scott Styris as a dependable batting all rounder and Daniel Vettori improving his batting skills on leaps and bounds, rendered McMillan’s all-round but inconsistent skills almost inutile. Eventually he wasn't even offered the central contract in 2006.

When he was recalled to New Zealand side to play against Sri Lanka in absence of injured Oram and Styris, everyone thought it was a stopgap arrangement. He looked overweight but not out of touch. After failing in the first game against Sri Lanka, it was his patient batting performance in New Zealand’s record defeat at Auckland, which helped him book a place in the side touring Australia for CB series. (In one of the most shameful batting performances in its history, New Zealand got out for just 73 runs. However, McMillan was the only batsman to show application and persistence in his unbeaten innings of 29.) His useful bowling and a couple of impressive knocks including more than run-a-ball 89 against Australia at Sydney cemented his place in the side. Finally, it was McMillan's perfirmance in the last two games of the pre-world cup season where he played up to his potential in some years. His electrifying knocks of 52 and 110 not only tumbled some batting records of his country but also helped New Zealand achieve the second and the third highest run chases in the history of one-day cricket in back-to-back matches.

The guy who had lost all hopes and was actually applying for sales jobs during off-season is now one of the main batsmen of the Kiwis side. All his admirers would be praying that this time his purple patch extends for a longer period. Good news for New Zealand is that now McMillan will go to the Caribbean with the rest of the team on a high. Not only that, but with Ross Taylor, Lou Vincent, Jacob Oram, Stephen Fleming and McMillan all in great form, they can enter the world cup arena with a serious chance to win.

The King Dethroned

Finally Australia has been dethroned from the top spot of one-day cricket. It’s a different debate whether South Africa deserves to be at the top. But statistics clearly shows that South Africa is no.1 one-day side in the world at the moment. Almost a year ago when New Zealand opener Lou Vincent said that Australians were not invincibles, few took his words seriously. Today, everyone has started questioning Australia's chances of retaining their hold on world cup as well.

But why was Australia dethroned? Experts say that sudden loss of Andrew Symonds created an imbalance in the team which Australia couldn’t rectify in time and lost the finals of CB Series. But for years Australians have been boasting about their more than able ‘second-line’ and actually Australia is too great a side to be unsettled by loss of one individual. They even managed to win the last world cup, after sudden loss of none other than Shane Warne. I believe, whenever a strong team suddenly starts losing, its more a systems' failure than individuals' failure.

For CB series final it was clearly seen that players had run out of steam. They were not showing the same passion that they showed during the Ashes. Probably during the Ashes they stepped up their game to such a higher plateau that they were clearly exhausted by the end of Australian summer.

In their loss to New Zealand, absence of Ponting, Symonds, Lee and Gilchrist might have been too big a factor (It’s interesting to note here that last year, with full strength Australian side, against a depleted Kiwi squad missing Fleming they were not convincing in their series victory.) But in the decline in their performance in CB series, I see captaincy as a big factor too. Ricky Ponting has had an enviable record as a captain in both forms of game. However, any student of the game would agree that his style of captaincy is completely different from that of Steve Waugh. While Waugh was a sly strategist, Ponting depends more on muscle power. It seems, Ponting’s ideology is that a good team performance is nothing but sum total of eleven strong individual performances. Hence, when team as a collective unit might be failing, a single superlative performance can win the game. That’s precisely what we have seen during his tenure (The most glaring example, Ponting himself at Fatullah) . Australia has been lucky to have players of calibre to deliver powerful singular performances. No matter what the situation be, somebody would pull them through. In such a scenario one needs players to have tremendous self-belief and motivation.

But whenever countered by an equally motivated and aggressive opposition, supported by smart captaincy, Australia looks clueless. We have seen that often in the past. During Ashes in England, against India, against South Africa and now against England. As during Ashes in England in 2005, during finals of CB series Ponting had no plan B. He clearly looked out of options and hence the revived English side got into the driver seat.

Having said that Australia is not invincible, it's also too early to write them off as non-favourites for the world cup. What Australians have in ample, unlike many other teams, is the big-game temperament. They have this uncanny ability to step up their games to indomitable levels in big games. After all Cricket is full of upsets and turnarounds. For a team like Australia it shouldn't be too difficult to get back to their winning habits.