Who said this WC has been boring? Apart from the great Indian wins one can also enjoy some great gaffes as follow:
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by Rob Smyth
Friday, March 21, 2003
Sometimes it’s as clear as day: Mike Gatting’s reverse-sweep in 1987 and Herschelle Gibbs’s premature celebration in 1999 were head and shoulders above any other mistakes in those World Cups. But this tournament has been a muddy cavalcade of incompetence and folly, where grown men have queued up, heads bowed and shoulders hunched, waiting for the dunce’s cap to be applied.
Here we count down the top 10. Some good ones missed out too: Michael Vaughan’s misfield against Australia, Jacques Kallis dropping Brian Lara, Shoaib Akhtar disappearing up his own backside - not technically a blunder, but still pretty costly - and Pakistan leaving Saqlain Mushtaq out of their match with India.
10 Andre Adams
It’s always endearing to see international cricketers do something straight out of club cricket. Adams’s double-bouncer against Australia, gleefully smashed for six by Andy Bichel, would have shamed the village idiot. To be fair, Adams’s radar was all over the place that day: a few overs later he inadvertently tonked Bichel with a head-high full-toss.
9 Tony Greig
Who gleefully described to the world the delicious feast he’d had while in Bulawayo ("butternut pumpkin and a delicious stew”), ignoring the fact that there were untold numbers starving in Zimbabwe at the time.
8 Pedro Collins
When Collins caught Lance Klusener inside the rope in the opening match, it seemed he had won the game for West Indies. When he sauntered back onto the rope to give Klusener his third six in five balls, it seemed he’d lost everything: the match, the plot, and a fair bit of dignity. As it transpired he hadn’t blown the match - Klusener had his own act of folly up his sleeve - but this was still a shocking act of negligence from an international cricketer.
7 Percy Sonn
For having five or six for the road at Paarl. It was the most ill-judged and embarrassing behaviour from a senior South African official until Shaun Pollock and Eric Simons sized up a Duckworth/Lewis sheet 19 days later.
6 Mark Boucher
Boucher muffed a regulation chance when Stephen Fleming had 53. Fleming went on to make an epic unbeaten 134. South Africa lost despite posting 306. Forget that last-ball block off Muttiah Muralitharan. This was Boucher’s big contribution to South Africa’s exit.
5 Nasser Hussain
Captains live and die by hunches. With Australia needing 14 off two overs, Hussain acted on one and gave England’s penultimate over to James Anderson (8-0-54-0) and his stodgy off-cutters ahead of Andy Caddick (9-2-35-4) and his proven death bowling. Andy Bichel clouted successive balls for six and four - and Hussain had made his last big decision as England’s one-day captain.
4 Lance Klusener
When Klusener was dismissed in South Africa’s opening game, South Africa still needed eight off three balls to win. Gettable with Nicky Boje - two one-day hundreds and an average of 28 - on strike, less so with Makhaya Ntini - highest score of 14 and an average of 4 - facing the next ball. But Klusener, criminally, dithered and failed to cross, which meant that Ntini took strike, and South Africa had muffed a winning position yet again.
3 Chris Cairns and friends
Getting involved in a tussle outside a Durban nightclub could be considered unfortunate; doing so at the time New Zealand should have been in Nairobi playing Kenya - a match they forfeited over security concerns - was just careless.
2 Brendon McCullum
Sometimes a drop is more than a drop. When McCullum reprieved Rahul Dravid, India were still 22 for 3, chasing 147 to put New Zealand out of the tournament. But the ease of the chance knocked the stuffing out of the Kiwis, and especially Shane Bond, who was on fire at the time. As McCullum tapped Bond on the bum - a neat reversal of the Boucher/Donald roles at Trent Bridge in 1998 - Bond didn’t flinch, let alone hint at an acknowledgement. He knew New Zealand were a busted flush.
1 Shaun Pollock/Eric Simons/Mark Boucher/whoever
Has the buck ever been passed more? Nobody cares whose fault it was, but the fact that South Africa - supposedly the most professional, well-prepared team around - misread the Duckworth/Lewis was an error of gargantuan stupidity, without which they would have almost certainly have qualified for the Super Sixes, probably the semi-finals - and Graeme Smith would probably still just be another bright young opening batsman.
Rob Smyth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.