Cricket's rogues' gallery: WCM picks an XI of rascals, rapscallions and downright wrong 'uns

This piece is taken from issue 81 of Wisden Cricket Monthly, out now.

Shane Warne

STYLE: Perma-grinning cat who got the cream and downed the lot.
CHARGE SHEET: Rum deals with dodgy Indian bookies; drugs ban for taking his mum’s pills; various nefarious extra-maritals offset by lifelong cohabitations with deep-crust pizzas, vodka & cokes and ‘Smokos’.
SPECIALITY: Driving into London in the middle of a match to meet with some special friends, one of whom happened to have installed a secret camera in their hotel room, and hotfooting it back in time to take a few poles the next morning
(“How do you feel after your sevenfor, Shane?” “Pretty tired out.”).
THE BEST OF TIMES: Two World Cups, named Player of the Match in the semi-final and final in 1999; 195 Ashes wickets, including his 700th on Boxing Day 2006 at his home ground in Melbourne; various balls of the century; the slider – aka the greatest wicket-taking weapon the game has seen; one of Wisden’s five greatest cricketers in history.
THE WORST OF TIMES: Banned for a year, missing the 2007 World Cup, for taking a banned substance that helped curb his weight – he said he had no idea they were prohibited, and that the pills belonged to his mum.
THEY SAY: “A wild and unpredictable ride and a warm and kindly neighbour.” Mark Nicholas
HE SAYS: “I’m not a criminal... yes, I’m into women, which has cost me massively, time after time…”

READ: Shane Warne: The cricketer of and for his times - Almanack

Wally Hammond

STYLE: Morose genius who would have been the world’s greatest bat were it not for Bradman, with whom Hammond became obsessed (professionally speaking). Elsewhere, as his biographer David Foot noted, “his ruling obsessions were his cricket bat and his genitals”.
CHARGE SHEET: Thought of by his foes as a loner, a snob and a womaniser, Hammond embarked on feuds with opponents and teammates alike. He once tried to injure his own wicketkeeper, Gloucester’s Charles Dacre, by bowling fast at him. Dacre in turn claimed he used to get himself out rather than bat with Hammond. Other notable enemies: Denis Compton, Learie Constantine.
SPECIALITY: Runs and women.
THE BEST OF TIMES: The thought of Bradman holding any kind of record led to him chalking up both more Test runs than the Don (and anyone else at the time) with 7,249, and the highest individual score of 336 (a crucial two more than Don’s 334). Did it make him happy? No, it did not.
THE WORST OF TIMES: Many thought Hammond’s personality
changed after he became ill during his first tour of West Indies. The cause of his fever remained a mystery, and back home doctors considered amputating his leg. Foot argued that it was most likely an STD, possibly syphilis, which was treated with mercury, altering Hammond’s personality. Hammond stuck to his story that he was stung in the groin by a mosquito.
THEY SAY: “If you want my honest opinion, he’s an absolute shit.” Basil Allen, former Gloucestershire batter
HE SAYS: “I was stung in the groin by a mosquito.”

Adrian Shankar

STYLE: The greatest cricketer you never saw. Or so he says. As do the dodgy records that he allegedly concocted.
CHARGE SHEET: As his Wikipedia entry notes: “Best known for being released by Worcestershire CCC having been discovered to have lied about his age and achievements in order to gain a professional contract.”
SPECIALITY: Having played in the same Bedford school team as Alastair Cook, Shankar made 12 appearances for Cambridge University, and then played second-team cricket for a few counties including Lancashire, who offered him a two-year contract. The club announced his signing with a quote attributed to Cambridge coach Chris Scott that Shankar “was one of the finest young players [at Cambridge] since John Crawley”. Scott rang Lancashire and told them he’d said nothing of the sort, adding: “He was a poor player and there’s no way I’d recommend him.” When Shankar was confronted by Luke Sutton over his age: “His reply, straight to my face, was that he had been on a life support machine for the first three years of his life and was therefore physically three years younger than he should be.”
THE BEST OF TIMES: Perhaps the most remarkable part of Shankar’s tale is that he does have a first-class hundred, made for Cambridge in the Varsity match of 2002. No one can take that away, even if, as Chris Scott noted: “The bowling was unbelievably bad.”
THE WORST OF TIMES: His two first-class innings for Worcester, where he got a third-ball duck and then retired hurt on 10. During that knock, he had to face Ben Stokes and a fired-up Steve Harmison. “He just looked so out of his depth,” said his batting partner Gareth Andrew. “It was a bit embarrassing to be at the other end. They just took the piss out of him for half an hour.” Shankar’s knee injury came during warmups for the next day’s play. “He said his knee had gone,” said Andrew. “I think it was a running joke that Harmison had shit him up so much that he didn’t fancy it anymore.”
THEY SAY: “It quickly became evident that documents provided in order to satisfy the club’s obligations to the England and Wales Cricket Board were unacceptable.” Worcestershire CCC
HE SAYS: “Do you want to buy some crypto?”

Lord Frederick Beauclerk

STYLE: A descendant of Charles II and his mistress Nell Gwynn, Beauclerk yearned not only to play the game but to control it. Notorious gambler despite being a man of the cloth. One-time holder of cricket’s highest individual score, 170, made in 1807. Eventual president of MCC from 1826-27.
CHARGE SHEET: Appointed Vicar of Kimpton, “he never allowed his duties to interfere materially with the claims of cricket”. His sermons were “legendarily dull” – crafty cover for his income of £600 per year from playing in and gambling on matches. Known to dangle a gold watch from his stumps to imply that his defence was impregnable.
SPECIALITY: A volcanic temper and a vindictive nature. He campaigned to have the new-fangled round-arm bowling abolished despite employing the round-arm bowler John Willes when he wanted to win. Began a long feud with William Lambert of Notts after insisting Lambert continue a single wicket match despite being taken ill. “Pay or play” was his infamous demand. Lambert played and won the game by bowling a series of wides, then a legal tactic, which infuriated Beauclerk so much he got the Law changed. He took his revenge against Lambert six years later when he accused him of match-fixing, with the result that Lambert was banned from ever playing at Lord’s again.
THE BEST OF TIMES: Lived out his days at Lord’s, as John Major described: “He sat, his white dog at his feet, observing all in solitary reflection of a life devoted to cricket, and in character to the last, totally indifferent to the verdict of history.”
THE WORST OF TIMES: A vicar “totally devoid of Christian charity” and a “foul-mouthed and dishonest man who bought and sold matches as though they were lots at an auction”, when he died, The Times refused to publish an obituary. Even his dog was described as “nasty and yappy”.
THEY SAY: “Cruel, unforgiving, cantankerous and bitter." Anonymous
HE SAYS: “I don’t care what they say.”

ISSUE 81 OF WISDEN CRICKET MONTHLY IS OUT NOW

Godfrey Evans

STYLE: In his day, the world’s best wicketkeeper, innately theatrical and immensely strong. On retirement he sprouted the mutton-chop whiskers for which he became famous to a new generation, ran a pub on the A3, dabbled in the jewellery trade and became the cricket expert for Ladbrokes – it was Evans who set the famous 500-1 odds on England at Headingley in 1981.
CHARGE SHEET: Claimed raffishly that his CBE stood for ‘Crumpet Before Evensong’. His party piece on the boat trip to winter tours was to dress as Carmen Miranda and lead the conga. A roisterer and bon viveur, he was a boxer in his youth, and once settled an argument with the Hampshire bowler Butch White “by lifting Butch by his shoulders to the ceiling and banging his head against it three times”.
THE BEST OF TIMES: Held 811 catches and pulled off 250 stumpings in his 20-year career. Writing his obituary in The Guardian, David Foot observed: “He was so nimble, so intuitive, that a great many of his leg-side dismissals were more like optical illusions.”
THE WORST OF TIMES: His biographer Christopher Sandford wrote of him: “For all that he was a cricketing Falstaff, there was a touch of Hamlet, too. He thought and fretted about life more than he let on.”
THEY SAY: “As a handsome bachelor [on the ship transporting the Ashes touring party], Evans may have been the only English cricketer ever to score a century before he reached Australia.” Ian Wooldridge
HE SAYS: “A ham sandwich, a half of beer, and then a 25-minute serious kip on a bench or under it, in the lunch interval. The siesta was my unvarying and infallible recipe for my cricket.”

Fred Trueman

STYLE: T’greatest fast bowler that ever drew breath. First man to 300 Test wickets. Retired to the TMS box, becoming a famously truculent presence (“I don’t know what’s going off out there…”) and garrulous raconteur. Presented cult pub sport TV show Indoor League, where he mangled scripts written by darts commentator Sid Waddell. Briefly became in-laws with Raquel Welch when his daughter Rebecca married her son Damon.
CHARGE SHEET: Loved nothing more than going into the oppo changing room before play to tell them how he was going to get them out. Congratulated on any wicket-taking delivery, his standard reply was: “Aye, but it were wasted on thee.” Missed many a match and several tours due to disciplinary issues, “Some true, some imagined”. Hauled before the Yorkshire committee for one alleged misdemeanour, he pointed out that he was 200 miles away playing for England at the time.
THE BEST OF TIMES: The Oval in 1964 when Neil Hawke of Australia became his historic 300th victim. Asked if anyone would ever beat his mark he said, “I don’t know, but if he does, he’ll be bloody knackered.” Trueman bore a huge workload for 20 years, an extraordinary span, and was devoted to Yorkshire, with whom he won six Championship titles in a decade.
THE WORST OF TIMES: Increasingly curmudgeonly, Fiery Fred slowly lost touch with his listenership. Once said that Ian Botham, who would surpass his record as England’s leading wicket-taker, “couldn’t bowl a hoop downhill”. His workload was reduced, until, in 1999, he appeared on TMS for the final time. “I’ve had loads of letters asking me what’s going off,” he huffed, “but I don’t know why.” The Guardian headline upon his departure ran: ‘Muzzle put on t’legendary pieman’.
THEY SAY: “Fred Trueman was a great cricketer. But if he had a fault, one single fault, he was a big-headed, egotistical c***.” John Arlott
HE SAYS: “I were like lightning.”

Umar Akmal

STYLE: Owlish lunatic, Pakistan’s Joe Pesci
CHARGE SHEET: It’s a long one, but getting banned for three years by the Pakistan Cricket Board for not reporting corrupt approaches during the PSL takes top spot.
SPECIALITY: Causing mayhem.
THE BEST OF TIMES: A spectacular Test debut as a teen, taking New Zealand for 129 from 160 balls. It promised much, but he only played another 15 Tests before his career hit the skids. He’s still chipping away on the circuit, by the way, captaining the Water & Power Development Authority in Pakistan’s domestic first-class competition earlier this year and making a few runs. At 34, and with a copybook not so much blotted as blacked out, he’s unlikely to return to national colours. But this is Pakistan, so…
THE WORST OF TIMES: Allegedly feigned injury on his first tour of Australia in protest at the dropping of his brother Kamran; getting arrested for driving through a red light and then getting physical with a traffic warden; four of the guests at his wedding were arrested for being disorderly; reportedly brawling in a Faisalabad theatre because he couldn’t get a song replayed.
THEY SAY: “Umar Akmal is his own worst enemy.” Mickey Arthur
HE SAYS: “Where is the fat?” Allegedly said to a PCB staff member after exposing himself in front of them while undergoing a skin-fold test.

Hon. Lionel Tennyson

STYLE: To the manor born, grandson of poet laureate Alfred, Etonian playboy and occasional Hampshire captain.
CHARGE SHEET: Heroic posho – he insisted on being driven the 80 yards from his London pad to his private members’ club – who answered to no one in his bacchanalian pursuits, invariably to be found throwing money he didn’t have at women he barely knew.
SPECIALITY: Losing money. A compulsive gambler, his valet (and Hampshire wicketkeeper) Walter Livsey would often be forced to loan his pittance back to his employer. Tennyson reportedly once lost £12,000 in a week, in the Twenties. Still, it wasn’t always so bad: he once turned up at Lord’s in a Rolls Royce after a rare successful bet.
THE BEST OF TIMES: Taking his Hampshire team up to play Warwickshire in 1922, Tennyson’s bunch were skittled for 15 in reply to the home side’s 223. Drinking solidly after the first day’s play, he bet £10 at huge odds that his team would still win the game, and saw his chaps rack up 521 following on (Tennyson 45; Livsey – needing the money – 110*). Hampshire ran out winners by 155 runs, Walter got paid, and Tennyson demolished their Birmingham hotel bar. Oh, and he captained England three times, summoned from his club to take on Warwick Armstrong’s unstoppable Aussies to make a couple of bloody-minded fifties.
THE WORST OF TIMES: Thrice wounded in the war yet described the Western Front as a “grim but gentlemanly shooting party”.
THEY SAY: “He only had to walk into a room, and it was like the sun coming out at Lord’s.” Barbara Cartland
HE SAYS: “Dear Mr Asquith, you are an interfering old buger [sic].” This was Tennyson’s reply to prime minister Herbert Asquith, who’d admonished him for dallying with his married niece. As Richard H Thomas observes in his magisterial Cricketing Lives, Tennyson may not have inherited his grandfather’s ability to spell.

Herschelle Gibbs

STYLE: Jack the lad who batted like he lived.
CHARGE SHEET: Almost throwing an ODI; “partaking of the local herb” to celebrate a win in the Windies; dumping his wife by text message: “She was too nice a woman and I couldn’t keep doing bad things to her. I think she was also starting to lose patience with my drinking.”
SPECIALITY: Getting caught.
THE BEST OF TIMES: Carousing through the night on the eve of a 2006 ODI at the Wanderers; the next day smashing 175 from 111 balls to chase down Australia’s world-record score.
THE WORST OF TIMES: Drawn into Hansie Cronje’s web of corruption as a young player in 2000, he was promised payment if he got out for less than 20 in an ODI v India. On the eve of the game, Gibbs “came to [his] senses” and whacked 74 in 53 balls.
THEY SAY: “A maverick, prone to self-destruction and always living life on the edge. On some levels, that is an accurate reflection.” Gary Kirsten (his best mate)
HE SAYS: “I’ve met people all over the world, from the man sweeping the streets to presidents and the royal family – not bad for someone from an underprivileged background.”

Roy Gilchrist

STYLE: Malign West Indian quick with a lust for violence.
CHARGE SHEET: Born into extreme poverty on a Jamaican sugar plantation, Gilchrist channelled the burdens of his early years into his bowling. The Cambridge-educated Gerry Alexander, the last white man to lead the West Indies, was Gilchrist’s captain in the late Fifties, and the two hated each other. Tensions came to a head on a tour of the subcontinent in 1959 when Gilchrist refused to
go easy against various unprotected batters. With hostilities at fever pitch and Gilchrist out of control, Alexander sent him home in disgrace. His Test career done, Gilchrist spent the Sixties stalking the Lancashire Leagues. In 1965, playing for Crompton, he caused a game to be abandoned after peppering a batter with short balls and beamers before hurling the ball at him from point-blank range. He was banned for three matches, not that he cared a jot. Garry Sobers, his countryman, called him the most dangerous cricketer he ever played with.
SPECIALITY: Beamers at tailenders from 18 yards.
THE BEST OF TIMES: In 13 Test matches in the late Fifties he took 57 wickets, laying the foundation for the future of West Indies fast bowling in cahoots with his benign alter ego, Wes Hall.
THE WORST OF TIMES: In 1967, during a violent row with his wife Novlyn, Gilchrist grabbed her by the throat, pinned her against a wall and branded her face with a hot iron. At Manchester Crown Court he was sentenced to three months’ probation, the judge observing: “I hate to think English sport has sunk so far that brutes will be tolerated because they are good at games.”
THEY SAY: “A man capable of chilling the blood.” David Frith
HE SAYS: “I have searched the rule books and there is not a word in any of them that says a fellow cannot bowl a fast full-toss at a batsman.”

Shakib Al Hasan

STYLE: Smirking miscreant.
CHARGE SHEET: Deep breath: fined by his own board for grabbing his crotch on camera as commentators discussed his dismissal in an ODI; ‘quitting’ international cricket via text message after being reprimanded for missing a team training camp; verbally abusing a domestic umpire when an appeal against teammate Mushfiqur Rahim was turned down; uprooting the stumps for similar reasons in the Bangladesh Premier League; banned by the ICC for two years in 2019 – with one year suspended – for failing to report corrupt approaches, some from the IPL; timing out Sri Lanka’s Angelo Mathews in a World Cup – “I’ve never seen a team or a player stoop so low,” said Mathews.
SPECIALITY: Utilising the impregnable “human error” defence.
THE BEST OF TIMES: Comfortably Bangladesh’s greatest ever cricketer, with over 4,500 Test runs and the most wickets – 242 at the last count – in their history. He’s currently ranked as the world’s No.1 all-rounder in both white-ball formats. Last year he completed a decade as a UNICEF national ambassador.
THE WORST OF TIMES: You’d think getting banned by the ICC for two years would be bad enough, but Shakib shrugged that off. The more lasting damage to his reputation may be his dalliance with Bangladesh politics. In January, he won an uncontested election to become a member of parliament for the then-ruling Awami League party, but after subsequent mass street protests forced the former leader Sheikh Hasina to resign and flee the country, there’s been a fierce backlash against any public figures seen as loyal to the former PM, and that includes Shakib. He was cleared by the country’s interim government to play in last month’s Test series in Pakistan, but his status has taken a severe hit. “When students were being killed, he never protested,” said former Bangladesh Cricket Board member Rafiqul Islam. “Many of these students considered him an icon. He should have come home first and gave an explanation why he was silent.” Perhaps for the first time in his life, Shakib remains tight-lipped.
THEY SAY: “He has a severe attitude problem, which is unprecedented in the history of Bangladesh cricket.” Former BCB president Nazmul Hassan
HE SAYS: “I felt like I was at war. Whatever I had to do, I did it.”

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