Back Porch Cricket

A 72-year-old cricket umpire in Wales died on Saturday after he was hit in the head by a ball thrown by a player, an incident described as "one of the most freak accidents you could ever imagine on the cricket field."

The umpire, Alcwyn Jenkins, was working a match between Swansea and Llangennech, and he was hit in the head by a ball thrown by a fielder. He collapsed immediately and was airlifted to a hospital, but he could not be revived.

Gunmen believed to be Taliban militants opened fire on a bus carrying the Sri Lankan national cricket team Tuesday morning in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing eight people and wounding eight more.

We're starting to understand the appeal of cricket test matches. Imagine a baseball game that lasts for days and days and days. In other words, Wrigley bleachers with no last call. There is something to be said about that. So, as the weather turns for the better, think of lazier days in the sun, with whatever sport that may be ... but remember to hold on to your beers.

(HT: The Sun)

The photo basically tells the whole story: Australian cricket player Andrew Symonds knocks a streaker down during a match in Brisbane. For more details we'll turn to the Australian newspaper The Age.

Training with NRL club the Brisbane Broncos paid off for Symonds tonight when he pulled off a monster shoulder charge to end an unsuspecting streaker's run in the second tri-series final against India at the Gabba....

a grinning, naked man unwittingly let Symonds blow off some steam.

During the 10th over, play was held up as the male streaker showed security a clean pair of heels - and a whole lot more.

But as the smug pitch invader rounded Symonds to complete his naked lap, the burly Queenslander put on a hit that left the intruder air-borne - and the crowd gasping....

The spectator is expected to be fined $3,000 for invading the pitch - but faces a possible jail term for wilful exposure.

Fark calls the picture, taken by Greg Wood of Agence France-Presse and available to FanHouse via Getty Images, the international sports photo of the year. It's hard to disagree.

Being a cricket superstar from Trinidad certainly has its perks, but there are distinct disadvantages to being one of the greatest batsmen in the history of the sport and coming from a small island: everyone asks you for autographs, you probably get hit up for personal loans more often than you'd like, and sometimes people hold your relatives for ransom.

That last one's especially troublesome, and it's exactly what happened to legendary cricketer Brian Lara. Lara's niece was abducted during an attempted carjacking in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad when thieves realized she might earn a hefty ransom. She was held for a week until Trinidadian police found the young woman tied up in a house this past Sunday, abandoned by her kidnappers, perhaps because such a high-profile abduction brought even more attention than they'd wanted in the first place.

Lara was out of the country for the whole ordeal. Trinidad, like many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, has a bit of kidnapping problem, with the abduction of Lara's niece being the seventh in the country in 2007.

It's time for some tension-filled post-colonial cricket between India and England, and things are already off to a momentous start as Zaheer Khan of India has already accused the English of something truly dastardly: throwing jelly beans at him during India's thumping of England on July 30th.

Zaheer claimed that England's fielders had tried to put him off by throwing jelly beans onto the wicket when he was batting at Trent Bridge on Sunday... He said: "I felt it was insulting - I wasn't sure where it came from but it definitely came from a fielder."

Dastardly indeed! Cricket players sometimes take jelly beans onto the field with them during matches for energy, which explains what they're doing on the scene in the first place. England, who lost to India in a test match for only the fifth time on their soil, made no effort to deny their bombardment of Khan, with Paul Collingwood playing the part of spokesman for the team.

"Zaheer wasn't too pleased - I think he prefers the blue ones to the pink ones."

Should tensions get too high, however, we can always count on Indian squad member Sri Sreesanth to keep things light with his irresistible dancing. Dance, you beautiful man, dance!

Cricket player Mike Powell faced potentially fatal complications from surgery to remove a blood clot in June of 2007, but lived through it to tell the tale. He lost a rib in the course of the surgery, which the doctors let him keep following the ordeal.

So what does a devoted cricketer do with a spare (literally) rib he's got hanging around? Put it in your favorite cricket pitch, Sophia Gardens in Wales, of course.

He (Powell) proposed the idea to the chief executive Mike Fatkin, not expecting him to agree. "He surprised me when he said 'Yes', but I was chuffed," Powell told the South Wales Echo. "I knew that a lot of people have had their ashes buried there, but I am the only living person ever to have part of their body buried there.

Well, the ante's been upped on that whole "ashes strewn on your favorite field" thing now, hasn't it? The best we could do (barring invasive surgery) would be tossing toenail clippings on Florida Field, which seems less devoted than burying a rib, and more just plain rude.

HT: Fark Sports