Random Cricket Photos Post 23




Since Virat Kohli's sporting gesture for Steve Smith from the 2019 World Cup is back in the news for winning him the Spirit of Cricket award, I thought it's a good time to put this up.

In January 1999, England were playing Australia in an ODI at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the home team were coasting towards a win when the English bowler Mark Ealham complained to the umpires about a beer can being thrown at him.


His complaint to the umpire only made the 80,000 plus MCG crowd wilder as all sorts of things began to be thrown towards the English players on the ground. The English captain Alec Stewart, seeing that umpires were failing at controlling the crowd, started doing some leg spin action while looking at the Australian dressing room. He was actually calling someone.

Out came the local boy and the Australian captain for the match, Shane Warne in his tracksuit. Fearing that he might not get spared himself, he picked a helmet on his way (of one of the batsmen) and with a hand on the shoulder of the opposition captain, went ahead to request the crowd to behave. There were very few who could resist the charm of Mr. Hollywood and the MCG crowd was no different that day as they relented upon the leg-spinner's request.

Cheeky as always, Warne later said "I said to Alec, I don't know why you're calling on me - after all that's happened in recent weeks they might throw things at me too."

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