A few days back I found this article in the Times Of India Crest edition. I being in a state of doldrums these days feel as if my brain paraphernalia has ceased to work. Here is the master copy of the article....
Sri Lanka fund itself in a tight spot after losing the 2001 ICC Champions Trophy final to Pakistan and came up with the most achingly innovative excuse of all: ill-fitting clothes! Captain Sanath Jayasuriya said their shirts were too tight and restricted on-field mobility. He went a step further, saying the shirts were like "ill-fitting men's blouses". For those who heard, there was no need to hold the laughter back!
MAN BITES BALL (2010)
Why most Pakistani cricketers aren't renowned for their intellect was highlighted in inimitably daft fashion by Shahid Afridi in January during a lost ODI against Australia at Perth, when he was caught on camera taking ball tampering to a whole new, crass level: biting on the cherry itself. Caught red-handed, Afridi's defence was to let loose some aggressive verbal volleys: "I am not a fast bowler who would tamper the ball. I was just trying to help the bowler. Everyone does it." Thank god he didn't say he was trying to sharpen his teeth!
IT'S IN OUR STARS! (1993)
Talking of Ashes excuses, Ted Dexter, England's chairman of selectors in 1993, said after England had lost yet again at Lord's : "We may be in the wrong sign...Venus may be in the wrong juxtaposition with somewhere else!" Such astrological acumen was promptly rewarded by a tonguelashing from the media. ... It was Dexter again, this time blaming the Kolkata smog after England's eight-wicket defeat in the second Test. But then, English cricketers have been past-masters at lambasting Indian conditions. Often, a bad hotel room or bad prawns was enough to explain away a loss, or a valid reason to skip touring!
BLAME IT ON MOM! (2009)
Australia lost the second Ashes Test to England and promptly the entire nation back home, laid the blame promptly on Vikki Harber, mother of Aussie left-arm pacer Mitchell Johnson, for raising a stink by insisting pin-up girlfriend Jessica Bratich (in pix) had "stolen" her son away. It was claimed Johnson was so distracted by this domestic turmoil he couldn't bowl straight and cost Australia the game! It wasn't an Oz first though. Shane Warne, after testing positive for a banned substance before the 2003 World Cup, pinned the blame squarely on his mom for giving him diuretics to aid weight loss.
CHANGE YOUR PANTS (2005)
The Kiwis had a torrid time against Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga throughout the series and at one point skipper Stephen Fleming wanted umpires to change their dark trousers. "There's a period there when the ball gets lost in their trousers," Fleming said, referring to Malinga's low slinging action. The umpires flatly refused, though Steve Bucknor did wrap a sweater around his waist.
DARK CLOUD RISING (1999)
England lost the first Test to South Africa at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg by an innings and 21 runs, with Shaun Pollock and Allan Donald decimating Nasser Hussain's bunch. However, the England skipper didn't own to the fact that England had been done in by two quality pacers: they instead blamed the "thick wooly grey clouds" hanging overhead! Hussain's eureka moment by far
FEET ON FIRE (2004)
The Italian players, after a lacklustre 0-0 draw with Denmark in the European Championships, said they coped with the Portuguese heat, but they couldn't handle their footwear problems. The most high-profile case belonged to playmaker Francesco Totti. Midway through the first half, he left the field and changed his boots on the touchline. "It was like having your feet on boiling sand," he said. Christian Panucci said his socks were the problem. "I had blisters on my heels at the end of the game. The thread that these socks were made with is too rough." Prima donnas, maybe. Fancy a chat with Kenya's barefoot runners?
LORD NELSON'S CURSE (1996)
Sam Allardyce, then the Blackpool manager, had a very ingenious excuse when his team missed out on Premiership promotion after letting a twogoal lead slip in the playoffs at home to Bradford. He merely blamed it on the ghosts of the past. The Blackpool boardroom, he said, was haunted by the ghost of Lord Nelson because its oak panelling was salvaged from his flagship! In 1897, the Foundroyant was blown onto Blackpool sands during a violent storm. Almost a century on, the effects were felt.
GREY STRIP, BLACK DAY (1996)
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has to be the 'king of excuses' and a more elaborate survey could have generated a page dedicated to the Scot. Perhaps the best one was offered after a 3-1 away defeat against Southampton. Instead of praising the Saints' superiority in the match, he blamed it on his team's new grey strip. It apparently left his players unable to pick out their teammates. Not surprisingly, the 'strip they couldn't see' was consigned to the dustbin after less than a season.
THE FROG CHORUS (2006)
During the 2006 World Cup, Ukraine defender Vladislav Vashchuk, after a 4-0 defeat to Spain, gave the most bizarre excuse. Apparently, frogs outside the team's hotel in the east German town of Potsdam had croaked all night before the game, leaving them without a wink of sleep, tired and out of sorts. "We all agreed that we would take some sticks and go and hunt them," he said then. He sounded serious!
WHERE'S MY TWIN (2004)
American cycling champion Tyler Hamilton was a poster boy for clean sport. Until he was caught for blood doping in 2004. "I would never do something like this," he claimed. It must've been his "vanishing twin." His reasoning: The foreign blood cells the anti-doping officials detected maybe came from a twin that died in utero or maybe from some of his mother's blood that was mixed when he was a foetus. Go figure!
DR FEEL GOOD (1998)
Agood romp in the bed is enough to make your skin glow, but for sprinter Dennis Mitchell, it landed him in trouble. Mitchell, one of the best known sprinters in the 1990s, was found to have excessive levels of testosterone in 1998, but said that was caused by a long night of bedroom athletics with his wife, powered by five beers, on the eve of the test. The US Track and Field Association lapped it up, but the IAAF wasn't fooled that easily.
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