Most selfish act in international cricket history by an individual player

[Jack1]

What incident do you first think of when reading the title?

For me the first thing that comes to mind as an England fan is Graham Thorpe stopping Alex Tudor from getting a hundred as a nightwatchman. Thorpe came in with 7 wickets left, played in one day mode and didn't anchor for Tudor - hitting 21 off 21 balls, a run a ball 100 strike rate in a test match - miles above his ODI career strike rate of 71.17 - he batted like a man on a mission trying to deny Tudor history. This included Thorpe hitting and running a 2 off the last ball of an over with just 3 to win - that sealed it for me. This left Tudor facing 95 not out with 1 to win and 7 wickets in hand, completely unnecessary. He ended up 99 not out, top edging a four over the keeper trying to hit a six.

For the record Australia (Gillespie and Mann), South Africa (Boucher), India (Karmani) and Pakistan (Nasmin-ul-Ghani) have had a nightwatchman hit a ton. England has not had a nightwatchman hit a ton in test history. No one from all teams has ever made more than 85 as a nightwatchman and been not out apart from Tudor and Gillespie (201*). Tudor was 32 not out in the first innings of the same game, making him 131 not out for the match - all making it extra painful to have been stranded on 99 not out in the second innings (he never made a test hundred).

England beat New Zealand, England won by 7 wickets

ENG 126 & 211/3 vs NZ 226 & 107 - England won by 7 wickets in Birmingham, New Zealand tour of England 1999, July 01 - 03, 1999

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[Immenso]

Probably Sunny Gavaskar's 36*.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Hard to beat Racist Sunny but one that I saw live was Michael Vandort in an ODI making 48 off 117 balls chasing 300+

 

[Starfighter]

Was that selfish or just Vandort being crap though? Was his only ODI it turns out.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Bit of both. He was clearly out of his depth but at the same time didn't even try to increase the scoring rate or take a risk to get another batsman in. He had Jayawardene, Sangakkara, Dilshan, Atapattu and Russel Arnold all coming in behind him!

They were chasing 319 to win, didn't even get within 100 runs and were only 7 down after 50 overs.

 

[subshakerz]

Probably Sunny Gavaskar's 36*.

Yeah, this.

 

[Chubb]

Don't want to open the Cape Town can of worms, but .... what Warner did is probably worse than any on-pitch example.

EDIT actually you know what, Mark Vermeulen burning down the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy is worse than Cape Town because it robbed an impoverished country of its main player development base.

 

[mr_mister]

Agree with the OP. Tudor deserved a ton that day

 

[TheJediBrah]

Tendulkar 100th 100, and the end of his career in general

 

[Shady Slim]

running murali out when he went to celebrate the sanga ton

 

[GoodAreasShane]

Swann buggering off halfway through the Ashes always stands out as especially pissweak to me

Even more so considering his tendency to give it large in on commentary/twitter these days. Knob.

 

[a massive zebra]

Swann buggering off halfway through the Ashes always stands out as especially pissweak to me

Even more so considering his tendency to give it large in on commentary/twitter these days. Knob.

His stats look considerably more impressive with a sub 30 bowling average. No way it was remaining under 30 if he played the last two Tests.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

His stats look considerably more impressive with a sub 30 bowling average. No way it was remaining under 30 if he played the last two Tests.

Swann, even before that, but especially so in recent years, seems like exactly the sort of individual who would think like that

 

[grecian]

Swann, even before that, but especially so in recent years, seems like exactly the sort of individual who would think like that

Possibly, but his elbow was ****ed, had pieces of bone floating in it causing him agony, and he never played again.

 

[trundler]

Match fixing, probably

 

[GoodAreasShane]

I honestly have never been entirely convinced his elbow issues were ever as serious as they were made out to be.

He knew he would land on his feet with a decently paid media career anyway

 

[grecian]

I honestly have never been entirely convinced his elbow issues were ever as serious as they were made out to be.

He knew he would land on his feet with a decently paid media career anyway

Look I get why you don't like Swann, he's a bit of a ****, but he had a number of ops on his elbow, or maybe it was all a clever scam. Wouldn't he have had the media career without retiring at a relatively young age.

 

[StephenZA]

Hansie declaration... nothing else comes close.

 

[GoodAreasShane]

I could be wrong, it's possible that Swann being such an obnoxious turd (which surely is one thing that can be entirely agreed upon) has made me more sceptical of the whole situation.

I don't know. Answers on a postcard?

 

[grecian]

Hansie declaration... nothing else comes close.

I won money on that, so I'm willing to let him off.

Yet seriously I do remember the immediate aftermath and everyone was saying what a great declaration it was for the game, and cricket in general.