10 Top Spats in Cricket
Let’s take a look at the 10 top spats in Cricket.
Cricket has come a long way from being a gentleman’s game today but few realize that sledging, spats and other infuriating tacticts are as old as the game itself. There haven’t been any physical fights, but there were times when players were almost off their tipping points and threatened to get physical. Others were a case of insulting sledges and witty retorts with all- bat, ball and mouth. Let’s begin the journey down the dark alley of cricket;
# 10. Venkatesh Prasad and Aamer Sohail : Pakistan were cruising in the quarter finals of World Cup 1996 and even after the departure of Saeed Anwar, Sohail was beating the Indian opening bowlers to pulp. He scored his fifty off a Prasad delivery which raced to extra cover for a boundary and then pointed towards him, gesturing him to bring the ball back. The very next ball, in attempt to hit the same shot, his off stump was uprooted and Prasad furiously dished out some curses at him extracting his revenge.
# 9. Ian Botham and Rod Marsh : This remains one of the funniest incidents and a classic example of of Botham’s wit. Marsh welcomed Botham in an Ashes match by asking him “So, how’s your wife and my kids?”. To this Botham famousy replied, “Wife’s fine. Kids are retarded”.
# 8. Kiran More and Jave Miadad : Miadad was no stranger to on field spats and when More was appealing constantly, Miadad retorted in a rather funny way by jumping up and down holding his bat in his hands raised above his head. Now we don’t know what that was but apparently he was trying to imitate More.
# 7. Malcolm Marshall and David Boon:
Apparently Marshall was tired of Boon missing on too many balls so he asked him if he’s going to play or should he come around the wicket and kill him.
# 6 James Ormond and Mark Waugh:
When Ormond came in to bat in an Ashes Test, waugh chirped “What are you doing here? You’re too s*it to play for England”, to which Ormond retorted by saying that “At least I’m the best player in my family”.
# 5 Afridi and Gambhir:
An India-Pakistan match, two players not particularly known for their temper, it had to happen. Not much was left to the imagination of people who were attempting to read their lips.
#4 Kieron Pollard and Mitchell Starc:
This was probably the second ugliest fight in the IPL ever. Starc and Pollard were having frequent exchanges when the latter moved out of the way when Starc was trying to bowl. Starc followed him and bowled his ball anyway to which Pollard got so infuriated that he threw his bat at Starc which fortunately slipped out of his hand avoiding any injury.
#3 Glenn McGrath and Ramnaresh Sarwan:
McGrath abused Sarwan during the West Indian innings and in return, Sarwan abused Mcgrath’s wife. At this point, McGrath threatened to rip Sarwan’s throat off as his wife had been recently diagnosed with cancer.
#2 Javed Miadad and Denis Lillee:
This incident was so bad that Wisdon identified it as one of the most undignified incidents in Test history. Apparently Lillee kicked Miadad while he was taking a single and Miandad patted him with his bat(which is not clear). What happened after that was shocking. Lillee turned towards Miadad to confront him and Miadad raised his bat to Lillee only to be stopped by the umpire.
#1 Harbhajan Singh and S. Sreesanth :
This tops the list as actual physical contact was made. Harbhajan was frustrated after a dismal season for Mumbai Indians and Sreesanth provoked him. This resulted in the former rewarding Sreesanth with a slap. Subsequently, Sreesanth cried on National TV and Harbhajan was banned for the remainder of the season.