FROM POULTRY TO POETRY

As the World Cup kicks off, here are a dozen cricketers, one from each edition, with unusual stories full of humour, grit and, at times, sadness

- ANIRUDH MADHAVAN

John Snow

There once was a son of a vicar;
a fast bowler known to bicker;
a rebel with or without a cause;
he was once pelted with cans of liquor

Perhaps some creative liberty was taken in this verse, but the poet inside the pacer would pardon the transgression. John Snow, not the one from Game of Thrones, was a lanky English pacer who had once sent Sunil Gavaskar tumbling to the ground with a shoulder tackle. He also refused to bowl in a county game saying he was being overworked; his captain, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, had to report him to Sussex officials.

That was Snow to a tee—hero and villain in equal measure. He would stand up to anyone he thought was in the wrong, be it an opponent, the umpire or even his captain.

But that worked to his detriment, too, as authorities would wait in anticipation for the day he failed with the ball or, as with the Gavaskar incident, brought the game into disrepute.

The Terry Jenner episode was even more notorious. Snow bumped the helmet-less, lower-order batter, who crumpled onto the pitch holding his head. Such was the anger from the Australian crowd that later, when Snow was fielding in the deep, a passionate gentleman—with probably a few pints in—grabbed the Englishman by the shirt. He wanted to give Snow a piece of his mind, and fist. Ray Illingworth, the English captain, asked his men to vacate the field; play resumed only after the crowd had calmed down.