Fattest Cricket Team II

Players 7 through 12 - Part II

7. Ian 'Beefy' Botham - Engalnd
Opening Bowler

One of the Piggy Pair (see 9.). Beefy was proper fat. In a team with Robin Smith, Mike Gatting, Eddie Hemmings, The fat keeper whose name I forget, you can almost add Gooch to the list and Botham made for a heavy weight team.

Botham never liked warming before a match, his idea of a warm up was a pie, pint and a ciggy followed by a snooze.

Famous for breaking a bed while performing extra curricular training one night in Jamaica, somehow, this event was never attributed to being a fat bastard.


8. Shane Warne - Australia
Captain & Coach

The greatest Fat man and fitting captain and coach for this ensemble.

Brought shame to fatty's the world over when banned for a year for taking a banned substance. The banned substance, a diuretic, was a masking agent. But poor Warne wasn't using it to mask performance enhancing drugs. He was using it to lose weight.

He later claimed he had no idea what it was and that his mum gave it to him. Which then allowed the English press to add another great headline, when putting a list of sportsmen that could be nominated for an Oscar. Warne was nominated for "Throw mamma from the training ground"



9. Eddie Hemmings - England
Spin Bowler who bowls a lot of straight balls

Besides being fat, Hemmings only made the team due to a pig. No not a family member, but a little pigs released onto the ground during an Ashes test with "Botham" painted on one side and "Hemmings" on the other.









10. Merv Hughes - Australia
Opening Bowler

The Australian Richard Simmons, no one else could get 10,000 people doing aerobics in Bay 13 at a cricket match. Often the cricket was secondary to Merv's exercise program.

His run-up style was once described as "The mincing run-up resembles someone in high heels and a panty girdle chasing after a bus."

It is said he excessive weight added to his knee problems shortening his career.

A champion sledger, his battles with another fatty, who was stiff to miss the list, Robin Smith, were legendary for Smith sending as many back as receiving. Hughes to Smith after Smith not being able to time a single shot, "Mate, if you turn the bat over, you'll see the instructions on the back!

11. Dwayne 'Bermuda Triangle' Leverock - Bermuda
Shot Putter

The 130kg Policeman who drove a prison van and played in the World Cup and took 'that catch'.

In a warm game to the world cup Dwayne dismissed both Paul Collingwood and Kevin Pietersen, prompting the English press to pen some of the finer work.

"Bermuda Pie-Angle", "Lard Before Wicket" and "OwzFat!"

But the best "The mystery of the Bermuda triangle has been solved. None of the missing people, ships or planes were abducted by aliens after all. They were EATEN by Bermudan spin bowler Dwane Leverock". This prompted his mum to come out in his defence "He's worked hard to lose a lot of weight. it's in his genes, he comes from a large family, on both sides". Yep - the left and right side. Front a decent size also.

12th Man - Crappy Elvis Impersonator - USA

What is a team without an overweight Elvis impersonator.

He should wear a box though!













Haystacks Calhoun - Fitness Advisor & Team Cook

Famous as a wrestler from the golden era, Haystacks said he would eat 3 dozen rashers of bacon and a dozen eggs for breakfast every day, "to keep up my strength".

By the time he was in his early 20s, Calhoun tipped the scales at over 600 pounds, prompting his personal physician to suggest that he did not have long to live unless he reformed his diet. He had an astonishing degree of physical strength. Legend says that Calhoun was eventually discovered by a group of traveling wrestling promoters while physically moving his cows by literally picking them up off the ground and carrying them across the field. Moooooooo!

Fattest Cricket Team

Players 1 through 6 - Part I

First of all I need to apologise to half the English and Australian teams of the 80's, especially the fat English wicket keeper whose name I forget, but I nicknamed Harry Seacombe - If I remembered his name he may have made the final 11 but as beer fogged my memory, enough brain cells remained to recall that Mike Gatting has kept at least once before and could handle the gloves. Here is my fattest team in batting order.


1. David Boon - Australia - Opening bat

World record holder for beer drinking on a Sydney to London flight. 57 cans

As modern day players work tirelessly on six packs, Boon worked tirelessly on downing six packs. He's gut was more a carton than a six pack.










2. Mark 'Mini Boof' Cosgrove - South Australia and occasional game for Australia when Zimbabwe are touring.

Returned to South Australian training start of one summer after a winter playing county cricket in England and apparently "enjoying my cricket". Well he also enjoyed beers after the game, before the game and during the game and had soft spot for pies and pasties. The soft spot being his belly. After turning up to training 15kg heavier than the end of last summer, he was famously sent home from training for a month to lose weight. Too fat to train apparently.




3. Mike Gatting - England
Wicket keeper

Bowled by the 'Ball of the century' delivered by another fat pig. Graham Gooch summed up the look on his face after being bowled by Warne, "He looked like someone had nicked his lunch".

The backfoot forward defensive, the agility, the strut for a short fat bloke who smoked, drank and ate and ate some more.

Famously arrived in the West Indies with his famous strut to save England from further embarrassment as a late inclusion, promptly had his nose smashed in by a Malcolm Marshall bouncer in his first game and sent back to England the next day.






4. Inzamam Ul Huq - Pakistan

Too fat for you. Preferred boundaries to running and Buffets to al a carte.

At a cricket match in Canada a fan called him a "Fat potato", Inzy climbed he fence and whacked him with his bat. Which prompted Imran Khan to describe him as the calmest player on the Pakistan team. Considering some of the peaceful natured players, Akhtar, Miandad, etc., enough said I think.









5. Arjuna Ranatunga - Sri Lanka

Once called for a runner while batting and the Australian wicket keeper, Ian Healy, kindly reminded him that "you don't get a runner for being a fat c#nt".

Or his other comment to entice Rantatunga out of his crease to the spin of Warne, "throw down a mars bar on a good length, that should do it."

But most famous for being a cheat and pointing at umpires








6. Darren 'Boof' Lehman - Australia

Boof, was a cricketer from the 70's and 80's trying to play in 90's. He was 'over fit' in an old fashioned kind of way.

Lept small beer kegs in a single bound and a couple of bounds from his gut and would eat your left overs when you weren't watching.

Burning down the Coach

Surav Ganguly came out in a press conference yesterday saying he was completely miffed with his Kolkata Night Riders coach, John Buchanan, has announced that the team for next seasons IPL will have multiple captains. And that does not involve all of Surav's personalities.

Now Buchanan is a bit out there, well I don't think he ever came in from 'out there' but somehow still managed to fax or SMS his coded message across. If it wasn't asking players to read 'The Art of war' before an Ashes series it was blind folding test cricketers and asking them to imagine playing the ball or catching the ball. This technique he imaginatively dubbed the 'Closed-eye technique'. I think the coach should open his eyes. This may have worked in Star Wars but were not battling Ewoks in 'Revenge of the care bears II'.

I digress.. To improve players' confidence he challenged them to discuss the merits of Hulk Hogan as a wrestler, the Bee Gees and just about anything else with zero relevance to cricket. Shane Warne put it most eloquently what he thought of these advanced training techniques for players at the top of their game, "a goose with verbal diarrhoea".

But Ganguly's comments that he was not consulted about the decision of multiple captains nor was any other senior member of the team, oddly enough make no sense to the coach. The next day, John Buchanan retorted with " I had already discussed with Sourav Ganguly the controversial theory of multiple captains for the team before making the announcement in a press conference on Wednesday". We can see how Ganguly was confused. He must have thought he was speaking to Chewbacca.

But nothing is better than a crying Ganguly to keep the effigy construction business in India alive. Yep, you got it, out came the fans burning effigies of Buchanan. Previous effigy burnings on behalf of Ganguly have involved when he lied about the then coach of India, Greg Chappell, sacking him and just about every occasion he is given out LBW, the umpires burn.

Now perhaps Ganguly is an innocent victim you say, he has so many fans, he thinks he is better than Pietersen. Well all this may be true, but aside from effigy burning fanatics and himself, poor old Ganguly does not have too many mates. With a reputation of a snob and a coward - "the coward reputation is all hearsay your honor", it is coincidence combined with team balance that I do not come out to bat when a very fast bowler is bowling, unless he is very tired".

Ganguly's County cricket career in England was not a success. In "The Wisden Cricketer" it was described as follows: "The imperious Indian - dubbed 'Lord Snooty' - deigned to represent Lancashire in 2000. At the crease it was sometimes uncertain whether his partner was a batsman or a batman being dispatched to take his discarded sweater to the pavilion or carry his kit bag. But mutiny was afoot among the lower orders. In one match Ganguly, after reaching his fifty, raised his bat to the home balcony, only to find it deserted. He did not inspire at Glamorgan or Northamptonshire either. At the latter in 2006 he averaged 4.80 from his four first-class appearances.

No Drugs Please, We're Australian

I woke this morning to the news that Ben Cousins, following concussion in Friday nights NOB Cup match, that he does not recall being a drug addict! What? - Is he on drugs or something?

According to Cousins, he suffered a 'delayed concussion' and lost the the last 18 months of memory. Is this something like temporary insanity, just a bit longer? Suffering from 'Delayed Concussion' - And when did Ben become a Doctor to make this diagnosis? Dealing drugs does not make a quack! I'm almost a doctor and I know this ain't right.

"I had a couple of crazy calls," he said on Nova. "A lady was telling me, 'you know, you spent 12 months out of the game, you're a drug addict'. "I said, 'what do you mean I'm a drug addict?' I got on the phone, I rang a girl back in Perth (and) I said, 'listen, you know, real serious, am I a drug addict?' I was devastated."

Handy though that he did remember that he was now employed, by Richmond FC, that the guy looking after him was the Richmond club doctor (a real one) and the other Richmond officials around him. perhaps he thought West Coast changed their jumper and moved east?

What did he think he was doing in a radio station? It wasn't filming "Who wants to be a Drug Lord Millionaire" - perhaps he can phone a friend?