When they next come to film another re-make of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, I’d like to suggest a new twist on Robert Louis Stephenson’s classic plot. Instead of the doc sprouting an extra head after swallowing the contents of a test tube down in his lab, why not change the venue to somewhere like Lord’s, or the MCG, where the same effect can be achieved by someone pulling on a cricket cap, or slipping into a pair of flannels?
Most cricketers – whether it’s a Test match or Sunday afternoon on the village green – manage to get through a game without their emotional levels rising much higher than the occasional handclap, a brisk arm wave to alert fine leg to the fact that you want him a little finer, or a polite inquiry of “Howzat?”.
Others, however, even in a game which historically purports to be the preserve of gentlemen, are capable of internally combusting to levels previously surpassed only by Vesuvius and Krakatoa. It doesn’t always have to involve the opposition either, as the poor sap who’s just mis-fielded off Stuart Broad’s bowling will happily testify.
There have been players down the years who haven’t so much required monitoring by a couple of umpires as a team of specialists in recapturing escaped zoo animals armed with tranquiliser darts. And the curious thing is, returning to the Jekyll theme, that when they’re not snarling and bawling on a cricket field, many of them spend their spare time raising money for charity, and helping old ladies across the road.
Take Jimmy Anderson, for example. This is a man who utters about half a dozen words per annum off the field of play, and speaks so softly that even if you’re standing right next to him you almost need an ear trumpet to hear what he’s got to say. When he’s in his work gear, on the other hand, the message comes through loud and clear. And it’s not always a complimentary one.
Having already been fined 50 per cent of his match fee for giving Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath some verbals early in the summer at Lord’s, Jimmy threw another wobbler in the third Test against Pakistan at Edgbaston when the umpires warned him for running on the pitch.
He did have the good grace to apologise afterwards, having seen himself on the replays throwing the kind of tantrum he really ought to have grown out of at the same time as potty training, including reclaiming his sweater at the end of an over with a petulant snatch.
If yellow cards and sin-bins had been in operation, as may well be the case in years to come, Bruce Oxenford might justifiably have said something along the lines of: “Now you’ve got your jumper back James, I suggest you take it back to the dressing room and hang it on your peg. Because you won’t be needing it for the next couple of hours.”
With this summer’s England team, an umpire isn’t even safe when his duties are confined to the TV replay room up in the pavilion. In the Oval Test against Pakistan, Alex Hales’ reaction to a DRS decision for a catch going against him was to invite himself into Joel Wilson’s television booth the following morning for what is euphemistically referred to as a frank exchange of views. So much for the old adage about sleeping on it.
Fast bowlers figure, for obvious reasons, pretty prominently in the short fuse department, and once again it can involve otherwise gentle souls. John Snow, for example, who at various times crusted tail-enders and shoulder- charged opposition batsmen, was the mildest man you could ever meet off the field. A poetry buff, and unbelievably patient during his time in charge of looking after the travel arrangements of the English cricket press on overseas tours.
Sylvester Clarke was a quiet sort of a chap when he wasn’t peppering opposition batsmen for Surrey and the West Indies, and the one occasion that mutterings about him being a chucker were proved came during a Test match in Multan, when Clarke hospitalised a spectator throwing a house brick.
A less mean example of the genre, who played for Leicestershire in the Gower-Illingworth days, was Gordon Parsons of Leicestershire, or ‘Bullhead’ as he was affectionately known. Gordon’s sledging repertoire wasn’t vast, in that every time he got one past the outside edge he always snorted: “If I bowl you a piano, do you think you could play that?” The problem was that it made the batsman burst out laughing, which was guaranteed to short circuit Bullhead’s entire fuse board.
Back he’d go, adding 20 more metres onto the run-up, which immediately
told you that a bowler who was no mean exponent of the art of swinging a cricket ball at a brisk medium pace at this point had neither swing nor medium pace in mind. What he actually wanted to do was ping his opponent straight between the eyes, and then stand over his prone body to make further observations about pianos.
It was always great theatre when Gordon’s rag went, although sometimes it had an adverse effect on the over rate when his lbw appeal took him on a backwards gallop past the batsman, through the slips, over the rope, through the tulip bed, and into the members’ bar. No mobile phones in those days, otherwise the umpire could have called the steward. “Tell Gordon it’s not out, and to get back out here when he’s cooled off a bit.”
Batsmen are not immune from blowing the occasional gasket, of course, and England have had some of the finest exponents down the years.
Hales is a total novice compared to the likes of Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash, brilliant timers of a cricket ball, and even better timers of a teddy bear when it came to despatching the toys from the pram.
However, no-one would seriously vote against Javed Miandad as the most temperamental batsman in the history of the game. An engaging man off the field, on it he turned into a combination of Attila the Hun and Basil Fawlty, so if they ever do consider a cricketing remake of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Javed would be a natural for the title role.
And he wouldn’t need a lot of make-up either.
This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, September 2 2016
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