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Cricket is a pursuit that lends itself to plenty of free time; blokes sitting around on planes or buses, in dressing rooms or viewing areas with not much to do but play cards, talk and take the piss out of each other.
In his hilarious book, Bowlology, the art of the practical joke is referred to by Damien Fleming as ‘cranking’.
The humour that this ‘free time’ stimulates is integral to a team’s morale and allows a group to freely turn upon one’s teammate en masse, providing many hours of enjoyment, stimulation and humiliation.
Another benefit of spending many hours on your backside with your mates is the generation of clever nicknames.
Cricket as an institution has always had this over other sports. Other than the very fact that the gentleman’s game’s participants have a lot more going on upstairs, there’s also more time to ponder.
Indeed, my favourite has to be the handle given to Richie Benaud by Englishman Harold ‘Dusty’ Rhodes who dubbed the former Australian skipper and commentary doyen ‘Diamonds’. Apparently, Dusty was of the opinion that Benaud was so lucky that “if he put his mouth into a bucketful of s***, he’d come up eating diamonds”.
Then there is Adam “Churchy” Gilchrist who was among a group of Australian cricketers approached by a young whipper-snapper who was keenly seeking autographs during the 1997 Ashes tour.
The little bloke turned to Steve Waugh and said, “You’re Steve Waugh.” He then said to Glenn McGrath, “You’re Glenn McGrath.”
He then turned to Gilchrist and asked, “Are you Eric Gilchurch?”
As documented by Ryan O’Connell here on The Roar, there have been plenty of pearlers dotting the sporting landscape and, in particular, cricket.
Even in recent times, from Mark ‘Afganistan’ Waugh to his brother Steve ‘Tugga’ Waugh and on to the short-lived Brett “Oswald” Lee there have been a great many. But unfortunately, creating excellent monikers in the cricket sheds seems to have gone the way of smoking.
With Mitchell Johnson terrorising the South Africans playing for England and the South Africans playing for South Africa over the course of this glorious summer, it seems a shame that a bloke who is capable of bringing down the thunder on hapless batsmen with his demonic speed and bounce has not been anointed with a groovy new identity.
Indeed, in days of yore, it is the tearaway who has been gifted the coolest of labels.
From ‘The Demon’ to ‘Fiery’ Fred. ‘Typhoon’ to ‘Whispering Death’. ‘Big Bird’ to ‘White Lightning’. ‘Duracell’ to ‘The Rawalpindi Express’.
While only a handful of bowlers around the world can truly hurl a cricket ball at blood-curdling velocity, I don’t reckon you can be defined as a legitimately fearsome fast bowler without an amazing bowling average, top-notch strike rate and, most importantly, a magnificent nickname.
Fred ‘The Demon’ Spofforth was arguably Australia’s first genuine quick – certainly the first whose name preceded him.
His 18 Tests yielded him 94 wickets at 18.41 with a strike rate of 44.5 and they reckon the high leaping paceman invented swing bowling. Uncovered decks, swing and pace. Give us a spell, Demon!
The 1950s gave us two speed merchants with memorable epithets. ‘Fiery’ Fred Trueman let the nut go with “an awesome cartwheel” and, not being all too fond of batsmen, bore a frightening white line fever that yielded him 307 scalps in 67 Tests at 21.57 with a strike rate of 49.4.
Bradman was quoted as saying Jeff Thomson was the fastest bowler he’d ever seen or played against, “with the possible exception of Frank Tyson”.
A Durham University graduate who, as it has been widely written, would taunt batsmen by quoting Shakespeare and Wordsworth taunts, ‘Typhoon’ Tyson took 76 wickets in his 17 injury-plagued Tests, at an average of 18.56 with a 45.4 strike rate.
Michael Holding clearly has the coolest sobriquet in the history of the known universe.
A superb athlete who glided his way rhythmically to the crease off his monstrous run, legend has it that umpire ‘Dickie’ Bird (what was I saying about cricketers and their nicknames?) dubbed him ‘Whispering Death’ as he didn’t hear his feet touch the ground until he was into his delivery stride.
With 249 wickets from his 60 Tests (Ave. 23.68 – S/R 50.9), he is said to have bowled the greatest over in Test history to English opener Geoff Boycott at Bridgetown in 1981.
Whispering Death. It’s even cool to say.
At 6’8″ and letting the ball go in commercial jet flight paths, Joel ‘Big Bird’ Garner would have the pill steeple from short of a length while he also unfairly managed to perfect the ‘sandshoe crusher’.
His 58 Tests garnered 259 wickets (Ave. 20.98 – S/R 50.8) yet incredibly, such was the attack at Clive Lloyd and later Viv Richards’ disposal, he only took five-wicket hauls on seven occasions.
The re-entry of South Africa onto the international scene brought with it ‘White Lightning’.
Allan Donald had a classical quick’s action, a Weekend At Bernie’s sense of humour and he bowled out-swingers with genuine heat. He spearheaded the Proteas’ attack for a decade and took 330 Test wickets from his 72 Tests (Ave. 22.25 – S/R 47).
Courtney ‘Duracell’ Walsh was quick. Just ask Geoff Lawson’s jaw!
Another sky-scraping West Indian at 6’6″, Walsh was given his handle through his ability to bowl with his loping high action at high pace over long spells. A career haul of 519 wickets from 132 Tests (Ave. 24.44 – S/R 57.8) just underlines his durability.
For much of his career, Walsh played second fiddle to Curtly Ambrose. While not sporting an awesome nickname, Joel Garner’s successor ‘Little Bird’ was nevertheless way cool.
“Curtly talk to no man,” the bass-playing Antiguan would say to the press. The most magnificent set of lips in world sport stood at 6’7″ but didn’t say a lot, instead letting his bowling do the talking as he took 405 wickets from 98 matches (Ave. 20.99 – S/R 54.5).
You may have thought ‘The Rawalpindi Express’, Shoaib Akhtar, may not stack up to the rest of these quicks with 178 wickets from his 46 Tests, but on closer inspection, you’d take his average of 25.69 and Trueman-esque strike rate of 45.7 any day of the week.
He got rolled after testing positive to nandrolone in 2006, but no one can take away his sweet tag.
So while Mitchell Johnson has a superb strike rate of 49.8 and his bowling average has plummeted from 31.29 to 27.50 in his past 10 Tests, something is missing.
‘Midge’ needs a nickname befitting an eyes-rolling-around-in-the-back-of-your-head, batsman-hating, fire-breathing nut bag of a fast bowler. Stat.
Twitter: @OLoughlinSteve
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