THE GOOGLY: Rotten apples of cricket get on my pip

HUW TURBERVILL: They are weekend warriors unleashed. They suffer from white-line fever. All the tensions of the week – scoldings from their boss, commuter fury, poor diets and hangovers – are ejaculated in a frenzy of obnoxiousness and cretinism

^{Huw Turbervill is fed up with overly competitive weekend warriors}

The people we play our beloved sport with are, for the most part, fun, sociable and pleasant. The camaraderie in cricket is unbeatable.

Yet there are always one or two who do not know when to stop. They just have to take their competitiveness a bit too far.

They are weekend warriors unleashed. They suffer from white-line fever. All the tensions of the week – scoldings from their boss, commuter fury, poor diets and hangovers – are ejaculated in a frenzy of obnoxiousness and cretinism.

Growing up, I heard tales of a local cricketer who deliberately clattered into the back of an umpire as he approached the crease, so infuriated was he by the number of appeals rejected; he also once threw his bat over the pavilion after being given out lbw.

Often this behaviour appears to be fuelled by indulgent parents who believe it is merely their offspring’s way of “letting off steam”. “Surely it is better to be like that than to not appear to care at all?” Err…

The predominance of league cricket, with promotion and relegation, is another key factor.

^{Our man Huw has been asking current club cricketers for their experiences}

Such odious and objectionable behaviour is epitomised by the Vince Cranston character, played by Nicky Henson, in the Inspector Morse episode, ‘Deceived by Flight’. When confronted by an undercover Sergeant Lewis, posing as a university porter, joining his team, he mutters: “This is supposed to be a civilised team, not a riff-raff XI”, and “I’ve never met a porter who couId bat. They could block.”

Unsurprisingly a call-out on Twitter for case studies for this article received a good response (I say unsurprisingly, because every umpire I speak to this summer says the standard of on-field behaviour in recreational cricket continues to decline drastically).

“I once saw an opposition batsman walking around the boundary shout ‘mine’ while a high catch was in the air,” Huw Lloyd tells me. “Our two fielders near it stopped, and it dropped safely between them. Only very calm captaincy stopped violence erupting.”

Alex Gordon recalls: “I had a wicketkeeper claim I had been bowled so I walked, but my team-mates back in the pavilion told me the keeper had knocked the bails off. It was my first senior duck, as well.”

On the theme of cheating, Guy Fraser says: “I knew someone standing close in the field who would try and imitate the sound of a nick.”

David Hobgen says: “I have twice been playing when a bowler has deliberately bowled a no-ball with the batsman on 99 and with one run needed to win. Hateful behaviour.”
There was another instance of this reported at the weekend. Minehead’s Jay Darrell was on 98 not out when a Purnell CC bowler threw it to the boundary to give away four runs and one for the no-ball.

"Not nice to see," said Minehead CC’s Twitter feed. "But more to the point, a great innings and a great win. Respect to the Purnell captain who apologised to the batsman on behalf of his bowler but some things just can't be undone." A pathetic act – the bowler should have sensed it was an opportunity to dismiss a nervous batsman and take a wicket if nothing else. He has since been banned for nine matches.

I personally may or may not have once played against a team who had one member who caught our batsman on 87 on the boundary, threw the ball in the air and shouted “f*** off!”, even though we needed only three more runs to win with seven wickets in hand; and another who was posted as third man/long-off with the sole purpose of ensuring we were keeping the scorebook accurately. They could afford this luxury as they had smashed a vast, impregnable total.

Some people just do not ‘get it’. I know ‘it’s just not cricket’ is a cliché and one has to be realistic… we are not living in the 1930s. But when you hear tales like this one, from Roger McCann, you have to wonder what is going on in society. “I saw a skipper declare when he got out, just as a wide-eyed, hopeful 10-year-old who was making up the numbers for the team was walking in to replace him.”

^{Umpires are complaining about deteriorating levels of behaviour among players}

Skullduggery and rottenness are not confined to the pitch, though. Tales abounded from the county where I grew up of a notorious side urinating in shower gel left in the opposition’s dressing room.

This pattern of behaviour is even seen from adults presiding over colts cricket.

Some coaches will do absolutely anything to win.

Ben Shorten recalls: “It was a 20-over, under-13 match. We scored 220-ish, and bowled the opposition out for 18. At 16 for 9, their manager realises no return crease has been marked on the (astro) strip, and he tries to abandon the match. He relented when his team told him to pipe down...”

Andrew Sutton tells me: “I once saw an umpire give a six-year-old out run out in a softball tournament after he had let go of his bat playing a shot. He went out of his ground to pick it up. It cost his team victory.”

While the next example concerns an act by a youngster, the umpire should have intervened in the name of common sense and decency. “I once witnessed the run-out of an epileptic kid who had a fit partway down the pitch,” says Frank McCabe.

And then there are the parents. The ones who are livid that their little Tarquin is not being given the starring role he or she craves and they indulgently feel he deserves. “No, he doesn’t want to open.

Or be No.5. He must be No.3. And he only wants to keep wicket for half the innings. And then he wants to bowl.” And so on. Bless him, the poppet.

There will always be rotten apples in cricket. And I am not talking about the teas. 

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