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."