Random Cricket Photos Post 44


#RandomCricketPhotosThatMakeMeHappy

While talking about a team's performance on foreign lands, analysts often talk about the importance of acclimatising to conditions. While acclimatising to weather and playing conditions is a major factor in how well or badly a team fares, dealing with away crowds is a heavy proposition in itself. Crowds can be, and most of the times are, unforgiving. And they often put all their creative juices to use to get under the skin of the opposition players. And if there's an off-field scandal or controversy lying there to be taken advantage of, they would definitely do it.

In 1993, the Pakistani team under their new captain Wasim Akram took a long flight to West Indies. Probably to deal with the jetlag, few members of the team led by the captain went to the beach not too long after landing. And on the beach they were caught 'in possession of a controlled drug' along with two female tourists and a local. The board came out in support of Wasim Akram Vice-Captain Waqar Younis, Aqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed and called it a conspiracy to unsettle the team before the series. Team manager Khalid Mahmood even threatened to return home even before a ball of the much anticipated series was bowled.

While Mahmood did manage to help his boys get the dirt off them courtesy some fine lawyers and lots of money from PCB, the Caribbean crowd wasn't having any of it. They were going to let the Pakistani cricketers know what they thought of was the reality. They made sure that they knew that the 'grass' wasn't much greener beyond the boundary ropes. And that's how this imaginative banner came into being. West Indies's 3 W's of Walcott, Weekes and Worrell had been mockingly replaced with 3 W's of Pakistan - Wasim, Waqar and Weed.

The grass on the cricket pitch too didn't suit the touring side much as they lost the first two Tests emphatically to concede the series.
Photo by Gordon Brooks

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