Botham, Warne and Cricket's 10 Most Famous Hellraisers
Despite cricket being almost the antithesis of rock 'n' roll, and let's face it, Matt Prior aside, not too many players have thrown TVs out of hotel windows, the sport has produced plenty of hell raisers over the years.
In fact, the following list of players have, with the help of bi-planes, pedalos, social media, the generosity of airline staff and lots and lots of booze, caused untold mayhem around the globe.
I've tried to rank the culprits in ascending order of trouble caused, but this is of course done in a very subjective quality. And for any children reading, this is what not to do if you want to reach the pinnacles of the sport!
Anyway, enjoy.
Honourable Mentions
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Firstly, here are a few of the players who didn't quite make the top-10 list of cricket's greatest hellraisers but are far from innocent.
Kevin Pietersen: KP's histrionics are well-documented, but most of his hellraising was done through administrative channels making him not worthy of a spot in this top 10. Although the more I look at this haircut, it makes me think I should reconsider.
Andre Nel: The South African paceman was a genuine wild man on the cricketing scene, with an alter ego called Gunther, a penchant for sledging, which resulted in this memorable exchange with S. Sreesanth and famously breaking down in tears after felling his hero Allan Donald with a bouncer.
Viv Richards: The original Master Blaster, Viv Richards, has a reputation for being a hellraiser during his career, but in reality, apart from being effectively sacked by Somerset, it was more the swaggering, chewing-gum personality that conveyed this illusion.
Doug Walters and Rod Marsh: Hard drinkers in hard-drinking times, the pair once celebrated a series win in the West Indies by drinking 44 cans each on the flight back to Australia.
10. David Boon
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Despite scoring over 13,000 international runs, David Boon is arguably better known for consuming 52 cans of beer on the Australian team's flights to the UK for the 1989 Ashes.
And this incredible feat alone gets him in this list.
There didn't seem to be much of a hangover either, with the moustache-wearing batsman averaging over 55 in the series which the Aussies won 4-0.
These days Boon occupies the respected position of an ICC Match Referee, and it is hard to imagine this wild act of binge drinking taking place in the current era of professionalism.
9. Jesse Ryder
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Jesse Ryder has just enjoyed one of the best cricketing seasons of his career, taking stacks of wickets and scoring bundles of runs for Essex in English domestic cricket.
But the fact that he's playing at all is fairly remarkable considering he was in a coma after being assaulted in 2013.
Prior to that tragic incident, Ryder has long battled the bottle, resulting in numerous charges of misconduct and lapses in discipline, a major reason why the portly left-hander has played just 18 Tests for New Zealand.
Perhaps the most significant was in 2008, when the big-hitting left-hander had to withdraw from a series against England cutting his hand on a nightclub window.
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8. David Gower
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These days, David Gower hosts Sky Sports cricket coverage, orchestrating proceedings with an air of respectability and class.
But during his playing days, the Silver Fox was a vociferous personality who got on the wrong side of the authorities on numerous occasions during a colourful career.
When he was skipper in 1989, he walked out of a press conference claiming he was late for the theatre.
Of course, his most famous incident was when he and teammate John Morris somehow procured a Tiger Moth bi-plane and decided to fly it over an England warm-up match during a tour of Australia.
The stunt cost them a £1,000 fine each but didn't stop them from exasperating the situation by posing for photos next to the plane the next day.
7. Ricky Ponting
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Ricky Ponting morphed into a relatively calm and respected Australian captain but rewind to the start of the prolific batsman's career and things were different.
The Tasmanian made his Test debut aged just 20; however, a penchant for the booze led to a handful of incidents that threatened to cut short his time wearing the Baggy Green.
On a 1998 tour of India, "Punter" was thrown out of a Calcutta nightclub after a scuffle with bouncers and fined by the Australian Cricket Board.
And then, most famously, Ponting's cricketing hook shot was proved to be far more superior than his own right hook after the diminutive run machine was knocked out in a drunken brawl outside a Sydney nightclub in 1999 and received this tasty shiner.
Fortunately, Ponting managed to put his issues behind him to chalk up the small matter of 13,778 Test runs.
6. David Warner
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David Warner has caused mayhem at the top of the order for Australia, and he's also caused his fair share of mayhem away from the game too.
Early in his career, he was almost sent home from an Academy for general untidiness, and his ability to attract unwanted attention shows no signs of diminishing.
The often outspoken left-hander has squabbled with journalists on Twitter, has been accused of crossing the line in delivering "friendly banter" on the pitch and has also called Jonathan Trott's withdrawal from the 2013/14 Ashes "poor and weak."
Warner's most famous misdemeanour, however, was when he punched one of England's meekest-looking players, Joe Root, in a Birmingham nightclub.
As well as being fined and dropped for this act, Root had the last laugh when he caught out Warner on the boundary when the latter returned to the Aussie team.
5. Andrew Flintoff
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A larger-than-life character, Andrew Flintoff was one of England's greatest all-rounders, but in his heyday, trouble seemed to follow him around.
Some incidents were amusing such as his obvious state of intoxication during a visit to Downing Street the morning after England clinched the 2005 Ashes.
Others, such as turning up for an Ashes training session drunk when he was the skipper were just embarrassing, though. And then of course there was the pedalo incident.
After a few drinks in a St Lucia bar during the 2007 World Cup, Freddie decided to take a pedalo out onto the water for a spin. The exact events of what happened next are unclear, but "Fredalo" cost Flintoff the England vice-captaincy.
The all-rounder, who struck fear into the heart of the Australians and played a key part in two epic Ashes victories, made a surprise return to cricket this summer, playing T20 for Lancashire.
4. Andrew Symonds
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The stage seemed set for Andrew Symonds to become an Aussie cricketing legend and enjoy a long successful career at the summit of the sport; however, his off-field behaviour put an end to that.
His rap sheet includes turning up inebriated to an ODI against Bangladesh, going fishing when he should have been at a team meeting and even being sent home two days before the T20 World Cup in England was due to begin for drinking.
Comically, Symonds once famously turned up for a contract meeting, barefooted and wearing a cowboy hat, but less amusing was a long-running race row he was involved in that threatened to prematurely end a Test series against India.
The ultra-talented player's last appearance for Australia was in 2009, and he retired from cricket completely in 2012.
3. Shane Warne
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Throughout his career Shane Warne and controversy have never been far apart, so much so, the leg-spinner had a comedic musical made about him.
In among the 708 Test wickets were fines for accepting money from bookmakers, bust-ups with numerous opposition, including Arjuna Ranatunga, and numerous tales of marital strife.
Warne missed an entire year of his career, when, a day before the start of the 2003 World Cup, he tested positive for a banned diuretic and was sent home in disgrace.
Even at the ripe old age of 43, the Victorian was causing mayhem in the Big Bash League when he shoved Marlon Samuels and threatened the umpire, earning another fine in his chequered career.
2. WG Grace
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The legendary WG Grace was able to exploit his position as one of the sport's leading lights to almost get away with murder during his epic playing career.
OK, so WG wasn't out swigging champagne in nightclubs the night before a big game, but he certainly did what he wanted and was unmanageable.
Once when clean bowled in a match he famously overruled the umpire saying "They've come to watch me bat, not you umpire."
His fiscal arrangements were notorious with the bearded wonder managing to extract a fee of £1,500 to participate in a tour of Australia...a fee worth over £100,000 in today's values.
Grace would also claim expenses roughly double what most players would get paid for a match. As the main attraction, authorities would have little option but to pay the big man.
But his incredible batting feats—he once scored 1,389 runs in August alone—made him the sport's first superstar.
1. Ian Botham
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Quite simply, they don't make them like Ian Botham any more.
The legendary English all-rounder terrorised the opposition on the pitch, scoring over 7,000 runs and taking 528 wickets at international level.
But Beefy was equally prolific off the park with a two-month ban for smoking cannabis, a court battle with Imran Khan and lurid tabloid headlines of extramarital affairs, just some of the "highlights" of his boisterous playing days.
Perhaps Botham's most well-publicised incident involved a physical dispute with Australia's Ian Chappell which, to this day, hasn't been definitively explained with both sides claiming the moral high ground.
This rivalry bowled over again recently when the pair almost came to blows in an Adelaide Oval Car Park during the 2010 Ashes.
On the most part, however, Beefy, though remaining a forthright opinion in the commentary box, has calmed down, and these days he's a tireless charity campaigner and even purveyor of fine wines.
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