Lovely old cricket. That most genteel of games, played by gentlemen - I don't think so. From its earliest days on the downs of England through to the all-singing, all-cheerleading razzmatazz of the IPL, cricket has always been rife with low life: drinkers, gamblers, womanisers, match-fixers and thugs have been as much a part of the game as tea and cucumber sandwiches. Some saw their careers ruined by such excesses, while others merely used the game and their standing to propel their exorbitance. Some players suffered "white line fever", while others, like Roy Gilchrist, were as likely to slap the wife as he was an opposition batsmen. Bad Boys Of Cricket reveals the depravity, debauchery and licentiousness in all manner of white-wearing wildmen, from Clem Hill, the Australian captain who punched his chairman of selectors and kept his job, through to Navjot Singh Sidhu, the hilarious but homicidal Indian opener.
As well as the myriad of laddish folk-heroes like Botham, Flintoff, Tufnell and Warne, there's a "before they were famous" look at Ricky Ponting's larrikin salad days, the darkly Shakesperian tragedy of Hansie Cronje and an insight into how the chicken-in-a-basket party circuit of the county championship can turn you into a cokehead.
- ISBN10 184818705X
- ISBN13 9781848187054
- Publish Date 1 June 2010
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 14 November 2011
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pitch Publishing Ltd
- Imprint Know the Score Books
- Format Paperback
- Pages 240
- Language English