Most selfish act in international cricket history by an individual player

[Spikey]

My clinched answer is any batsman in a T20 who towards the end of an innings should be hogging the strike because they're a gun and they've got a bowler at the other end who hasn't faced a ball yet, but chooses not to hog the strike because they don't want to be called selfish, therefore becoming selfish

The thing about the Swann situation was that he had surgery that year to get rid of the bone fragments and I remember reading articles about the time of '13 Ashes about how good it was to be bowling without pain.

Eh, athletes lie all the time about this stuff

But I think PEWS has argued before that, almost by definition, players choosing to retire is a selfish act, it's all just different shades. So in Swann's case I'm not sure retiring when you're a) past it, as Swann was and b) after his team has lost the series, is notably selfish compared to say Sachin and Steve Waugh's retirement tour. If anything, convincing himself that he was fit to go on the tour is the more selfish act.

 

[Spikey]

I remember one time Brett Lee was returning from injury and needed to prove his fitness and bowl some overs before a state game, but the grade game was washed out and something else happened as well and so the only game he could do it in was a U19s game. I'm not sure if it was a proper U19s game or a Future's League deal and not actually U19s, but he refused to do it as it was beneath him, and so couldn't be picked for the state game and then he got mad about it.

anyway a few years later he was happy to go full blast at Piers Morgan for a bit of fun (I would say 'kill' but I rather suspect Lee subscribes to some of Morgan's views)

so I always thought that was a weird thing.

Oh yeah this cricketer called Morgan betrayed Ireland, that's pretty selfish.

 

[SteveNZ]

Not international cricket, but this happened in the BBL this year when Andrew Tye (I think?) bowled a wide (a very high, leg side bouncer) to end the game and deny James Vince a century.

Aha, this was the one. Cheers. I remember thinking this wasn't on purpose, but people took it as such

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Derek Pringle was very selfish. If he cared about English cricket he wouldn’t have turned up whenever he was selected.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Aha, this was the one. Cheers. I remember thinking this wasn't on purpose, but people took it as such

Probably was on purpose