Nine cricketers to avoid in a dark alley Print E-mail
Category: Features
Written by Luke Tagg   
Friday, 29 January 2010 17:16
Dunno about you, but I love dark alleys. Generally speaking, I'm the guy you don't want to meet in a dark alley, although if you did I would mean you no harm - I just like dangerous places, is all.

As much as I love a handy dark alley in which to hide (I'm usually running from someone in a position of authority, after dark), even I draw the line at finding myself face to face with certain cricketers in the dead of night, with nobody but Dead Gran to hear me scream.

I decided to pick one cricketer from each Test playing nation who I would least like to meet in that dark alley. It is my fervent wish that you never meet them there either.

9. Abdur Razzak (Bangladesh)

I've got nothing personal against Abdur, but he has long been responsible for mass confusion with regards to his name.

The problem is that Pakistan have Abdul Razzaq and I've been listening to commentators for years messing the two names up. I always thought they were one and the same player.

If you were to meet Abdur in a dark alley how would you know it was him and not Abdul? You wouldn't be able to make Alley Small Talk (that's what we Alley-Cats call it in our Alley-Speak), which is very necessary to inform any dark stranger that you have no evil intentions yourself.

"Hi guy", you'd be forced to offer, which is a big no-no in Alleyquette. It sounds like a solicitation, which can turn real ugly, real fast.

Best just to hope you don't meet him. That way you won't have to cough into your hand when greeting him, pretending you know which Razzak he is. It's just awkward and uncomfortable.

8. Dave Mohammed (West Indies)

Any man who can invent celebrations like The Alligator Death Roll and The Shoe Phone is probably best avoided in a dark alley - way too much creativity going on.

You want predictability in an alley, eg. he's big, mean-looking and holding a gleaming kitchen knife. That you can deal with.

What you can't deal with is some spooky bloke rolling around on the ground pretending to be an alligator. How do you process that? Where do you start?

You'd be forced to flee, screaming long into the night.

7. Peter Siddle (Australia)

If Siddle was a nice, kind, gentle sort of boy at school - who never picked on anyone - it would be more extraordinary to me than if Lalit Modi himself strolled into my kitchen all nonchalant-like at 4am one sad Tuesday and asked to borrow a half-cup of Huletts.

The guy is mean as mustard and spoiling for a fight - as a nipper I was generally on the receiving end of such fellers and it wasn't much fun.

Siddle the Schoolboy - on a sunny day in an open school field - is a big enough problem to have to deal with, but Siddle by Night is an altogether unwelcome prospect.

The sort of bloke who - upon spotting you leaning up against the wall of the alley - walks directly up to you, gets in your face and asks you what you're looking at.

It's an impossible question to answer: if you say "You, mate" he takes it personal and smacks you; if you say "Nothing" he asks "Are you calling me nothing?" - then smacks you.

Either way you get smacked, simply for being there.

6. Jesse Ryder (New Zealand)

A casual drunk in a dark alley can be dealt with easily... but Jess is no casual drunk.

The guy will be topped up on 17 lagers, eight lines of coke, 20 reefers and a bag of heroin, to go with three caps of LSD, four Nexxus pills and three Panados, for the headache.

Throw in five grams of 'shrooms, a bottle of cough mixture, a hash bong and a small bottle of poppers and you're almost there. Top it off with a quart of Jack, 200 granules of methamphetamine, some prescription painkillers and a packet of Quaaludes and you and Jess will be almost on the same page.

If you're lagging behind - say, 10 lagers down and only a joint or two up - Jess-man won't be on your wavelength, man. He'll misread you.

You don't want a guy with that many substances in his body to misread you. Trust me. You're in danger of having your head put through a convenient window.

5. Shahid Afridi (Pakistan)

Bad guys are alright for the most part, but the one you have to watch out for is the man with the suave smile, the designer clothes and stylin' haircut, with a lover's rose in one hand and a Luger in the other.

Afridi is a loaded weapon at the best of times and we all know what his gun sounds like when discharged. That's right:

Boom-Boom. Game over. Dead, baby.

4. Muttiah Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)

It's the eyes. Those damn eyes!

Dark alleys are scary enough places on their own - the last thing you need is the added fear factor of two Murali Moon-Globes peering at you from the darkest recesses of the surrounding gloom.

It's all you would see as the death that is Murali edged ever-closer. The eyes would draw you in, mesmerise you, fascinate and disturb you. There is no escaping the spell they weave and before you know it The Eyes would be upon you, the rank breath of the madman caressing your terror-stricken face.

His final act would be to smile at you, showing his teeth in the moonlight for the first time, before biting into your neck with his crooked tooth and sucking the life out of your screaming, dying body.

The Eyes would disappear from whence they came, blinking occasionally and gradually getting smaller until nothing remains in that dark alley but a dying cigarette and your rotting corpse.

3. Paul Collingwood (England)

The problem with Colly is that he won't go away. That's a handy quality if you're being dragged out to sea through the Knysna Heads and are unable to swim - Colly would refuse to leave and being a nice bloke would probably save you.

In a dark alley, however, you don't want him hanging around lest someone spotted the two of you and assumed you were his mate. I'm not your mate, Colly. Far from it, you match-saving bastard.

He'd hang about, shooting the breeze, refusing to pick up your multitude of hints about pissing off. You'd be like a marionette on speed, twitching every muscle in your face and jerking about, yet still he wouldn't get the hint to go away.

Eventually you'd have to stop being polite and tell him straight: "Listen, Colly - piss off, man. Seriously. I also loathe KP and I agree that Straussy is a crap captain and that Stuey is a Twat-with-a-Dad, but honestly, china - stuff off now."

Then he'd be hurt and phone up his old mate Graham Onions to pull on over for moral support and you'd have no option left but to stab yourself to death with a handy railway sleeper. Nineteen times.

2. Virender Sehwag (India)

This one is a complete no-brainer. In case you haven't figured out why Viru may be a problem in a dark alley, allow me to elucidate:

He'd hit you. With his bat. Again and again and again and again and again and again and again. He just wouldn't stop hitting you.

If you died it would make no difference - he'd just keep hitting you and hitting you and hitting you and hitting you, until even your corpse begged for mercy.

Then he'd hit your corpse some more. He'd shift his position, mire his boots for better purchase in the ground awash with your body fluids, wipe his brow, raise his bat in acknowledgement... and continue hitting you.

By the time he was done there'd be nothing left of you but paste, his bat would be in splinters and the crowd would be calling his name, over and over again.

"Viru! Viru! Viru! Jai! Jai! Jai!"

Sehwag's greatest hits. Starring you.

1. Alistair Gray (South Africa)

Heaven help you should you be casually hanging around in a dark alley, minding your own business, only for Alistair Gray to go shambling by in the night.

You'll blink once or twice in disbelief, rub your eyes and slowly open them through louvered fingers, hoping, hoping, hoping it isn't who you think it is.

It is he, unfortunately, which means no matter what you do your fate is already determined - and it's not a pretty one.

At least you can die from whatever hell awaits safe in the knowledge that everyone else in a five-block radius is also suffering in some unimaginably cruel and terrible way.

"Where He shall wander shall Death be His shadow", it is written in the Book of Gray. Believe it.

Draw the curtains tight shut at night. Peep not.
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