England's second-highest Test wicket-taker famous for refusing to walk after a huge edge in the 2013 Ashes, and for being hit for six sixes by Yuvraj Singh.
143 incidents documented
Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Mumbai Indians
10 May 2026
Tim David was fined 30% of his match fee and handed two demerit points after appearing to raise his middle finger towards the Mumbai Indians dugout as RCB's two-wicket win sealed MI's exit from IPL 2026 — a gesture broadcast cameras caught live and social media amplified within minutes.
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Chennai Super Kings
18 May 2026
Ishan Kishan mimicked blowing a whistle at the Chepauk crowd and gestured for fans to leave after SRH's five-wicket win over CSK — a celebration that divided the cricket world, with R. Ashwin criticising him and Sunil Gavaskar defending him.
Punjab Kings
26 May 2026
Arshdeep Singh deleted more than 200 Instagram posts within 24 hours following Punjab Kings' playoff exit and a season defined by accumulating controversies — wiping his feed of team content, personal posts, and a viral reel with Virat Kohli, leaving behind only brand endorsements.
Gujarat Titans vs Rajasthan Royals
29 May 2026
The Qualifier 2 toss between Gujarat Titans and Rajasthan Royals at Mullanpur had to be conducted twice after match referee Prakash Bhatt failed to hear Riyan Parag's call — a visible frustration for Shubman Gill who appeared to have won the original toss before the do-over.
South Africa, West Indies, England
10 March 2026
South Africa and West Indies stranded in India 8-11 days after T20 WC 2026 while England departed in 48 hours, sparking ICC bias claims.
Lucknow Super Giants vs Kolkata Knight Riders
26 April 2026
Kartik Tyagi bowled two beamers in the final over of LSG's chase but was allowed to continue — umpires called only one dangerous — sparking IPL fury.
Kolkata Knight Riders vs Mumbai Indians
20 May 2026
Hardik Pandya fined 10% of match fee for knocking bails off in frustration during MI vs KKR — a Level 1 equipment abuse offence in IPL 2026.
Rajasthan Royals
10 May 2026
Riyan Parag attacked IPL commentators for personal remarks after his vaping fine, telling broadcasters to talk about cricket only in a press conference.
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru
23 May 2026
Virat Kohli walked past an outstretched hand from Travis Head without acknowledgement at the post-match handshake ceremony following Sunrisers Hyderabad's 55-run defeat of Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on 23 May 2026. The snub came after a heated on-field exchange in RCB's chase of a massive 256-run target, during which Kohli, set up by Venkatesh Iyer's blazing start, taunted Head by miming the Impact Player signal and appearing to invite him to come and bowl. Kohli was dismissed for 15 off 11 balls — to a bowler other than Head — and Head's parting line, audible to multiple broadcasters, was: "Mate, you got out before I even came on to bowl." After the match, Kohli shook hands with SRH captain Pat Cummins and Abhishek Sharma but visibly bypassed Head, who was standing in the handshake line with his arm extended. Head's subsequent Instagram story — "Keep the body guessing" — went viral.
BCCI / IPL franchises
9 May 2026
IPL 2026 matches were suspended and rescheduled in early May 2026 as India-Pakistan geopolitical tensions escalated, marking the first mid-tournament disruption to the IPL since the 2009 security-led move to South Africa. The BCCI briefly paused operations before resuming the competition.
Gujarat Titans vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru
30 April 2026
Rajat Patidar was given out caught by Jason Holder in the deep during RCB's match against Gujarat Titans on 30 April 2026, in a third-umpire decision that triggered one of the season's most heated on-field arguments. Replays showed Holder still moving and sliding as he completed the take, and Aakash Chopra publicly described the umpire as "the villain" of the call. Virat Kohli, fielding when the next innings began, walked across to argue with the umpires — a clip that was the most-shared cricket video in India for 24 hours.
Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings
3 May 2026
A 10th-over flashpoint between Tilak Varma and Jamie Overton during MI's innings against CSK at Wankhede produced one of the most replayed clips of IPL 2026 — and a backstory CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad later admitted he had personally lit. After Tilak struck Overton for a four, Gaikwad told Overton from the boundary that the all-rounder ought to "go home and skip the IPL". Overton, infuriated, took it onto the field; the next over, Tilak nudged the ball towards midwicket, looked for a second run, and had to swerve past Overton at the non-striker's end. Words flew. Suryakumar Yadav and the umpires intervened.
Canada vs New Zealand
10 April 2026
The International Cricket Council's Anti-Corruption Unit opened a formal investigation into Canada's 2026 T20 World Cup group-stage fixture against New Zealand after a 10 April CBC documentary, "Corruption, Crime and Cricket", aired allegations of match-fixing and broader governance failure inside Cricket Canada. The probe centres on the fifth over of New Zealand's chase, bowled by Canada captain Dilpreet Bajwa — who had been appointed only three weeks before the tournament — and on a recorded telephonic conversation involving former Canadian coach Khurram Chohan.
Mumbai Indians
29 April 2026
A pre-match practice session at the Wankhede produced one of IPL 2026's most circulated bystander clips. Quinton de Kock, in middle practice ahead of a Mumbai Indians home game, hit a towering straight six that cleared the practice area and headed for the back wall. A ball boy, repositioning behind the boundary, attempted a leaping catch and instead caught his shoulder against a TV set on a stand, sending the monitor toppling onto the grass. The ball, untouched, rolled away. The TV survived. The clip did not.
Rajasthan Royals
5 May 2026
A year after becoming the youngest centurion in IPL history at 14, Vaibhav Suryavanshi spent the IPL 2026 league phase doing something even harder: leading the tournament's batting impact charts as a 15-year-old. By the end of the league stage, Suryavanshi sat on 499.91 batting impact points and 404 actual runs — the highest impact score of the season, ahead of established internationals — and Rajasthan Royals had built a top-four campaign almost entirely around him.
PSL franchises
22 March 2026
Pakistan Super League 2026 became the first major franchise tournament in modern cricket history to be played behind closed doors for reasons unrelated to a pandemic. Citing the economic and logistical impact of the 2026 Iran war, the Government of Pakistan and the PCB announced on 22 March that the season would be confined to Lahore and Karachi and played to empty stadiums to reduce inter-city movement and conserve fuel. The opening ceremony was cancelled. A pink-ball broadcast experiment, fake-crowd-noise audio leaks, and broadcast-quality complaints turned the season into a string of small public-relations crises.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Gujarat Titans
24 April 2026
Sai Sudharsan, opening for Gujarat Titans against Royal Challengers Bengaluru on 24 April 2026, scored a 57-ball century that took him past Chris Gayle's longstanding mark to become the fastest player by innings count to reach 2,000 IPL runs. Sudharsan reached the milestone in 47 innings; Gayle had taken 48.
Rajasthan Royals vs Punjab Kings
28 April 2026
Rajasthan Royals captain Riyan Parag was caught on broadcast vaping in the team dressing room during RR's 28 April 2026 match against Punjab Kings — a Level 1 breach of the IPL Code of Conduct (Article 2.21, "conduct that brings the game into disrepute") that led to a 25 per cent match-fee fine and one demerit point. The incident reignited debate about senior-player behaviour and franchise discipline at the IPL's youngest captaincy.
Mumbai Indians
5 May 2026
Hardik Pandya's IPL 2026 with Mumbai Indians has produced the lowest captaincy win rate in MI's franchise history — 40.54 per cent — and a four-match losing streak that left the side on the wrong side of the playoff race. Speculation about whether Rohit Sharma or Suryakumar Yadav should take back the captaincy ran through the season, sharpened by a public Bumrah-Pandya field-placement clash on 16 April and Ravichandran Ashwin's "underwhelmed" comment on broadcast.
Lucknow Super Giants
5 May 2026
Rishabh Pant's first season as Lucknow Super Giants captain has produced LSG's worst IPL campaign — 4 points from 9 matches and bottom of the IPL 2026 table — alongside personal form below his historical standards. Public commentary has called for him to step down from the captaincy and focus on his batting; LSG's franchise leadership has not yet acted.
Mumbai Indians
April 2026
Ravichandran Ashwin, working as a broadcast analyst during IPL 2026, said publicly that he was "underwhelmed" with Hardik Pandya's Mumbai Indians captaincy — a rare on-air criticism from a fellow active senior international that became a recurring reference point in MI's mid-season captaincy debate.
BCCI / IPL
March 2026
The IPL announced ahead of the 2026 season that it had scrapped the rule mandating a one-match suspension for captains after three slow over-rate offences in a season. Captains and players will now face fines and in-game field-restriction penalties only — a significant softening of the disciplinary regime that has produced multiple over-rate fines without any captain suspensions across IPL 2026.
Cricket Canada
10 April 2026
The CBC documentary 'Corruption, Crime and Cricket' broadcast on 10 April 2026 included the existence of a recorded telephonic conversation involving former Cricket Canada coach Khurram Chohan that the documentary's producers said was relevant to the ACU's match-fixing probe. CBC declined to publish the full audio in the broadcast, citing legal and procedural reasons; the recording has been provided in full to ICC officials.
Cricket Canada
10 April 2026
Former Cricket Canada coach Pubudu Dassanayake claimed on camera in the CBC documentary 'Corruption, Crime and Cricket' that he had been threatened by Cricket Canada with contract termination if certain players were not selected. The claim is the third strand of the documentary's allegations against Cricket Canada governance and points at administrative interference rather than at on-field fixing.
Mumbai Indians vs Chennai Super Kings
April 2026
Mumbai Indians' use of Shardul Thakur as concussion replacement for Mitchell Santner during their Wankhede match against CSK in April 2026 placed the IPL's like-for-like concussion-substitution rule under public scrutiny. Critics argued that an all-rounder for a frontline spinner was not a like-for-like swap. MI's coaching staff, led by Mahela Jayawardene, defended the call as procedurally correct.
Sunrisers Hyderabad vs Punjab Kings
6 May 2026
Shashank Singh's IPL 2026 fielding curse continued at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on 6 May 2026 when he dropped Heinrich Klaasen off Yuzvendra Chahal's bowling — a slog sweep that flew straight to him at the boundary, sat in his hands for a fraction of a second, and slipped out. PBKS fans on social media were unforgiving.
Punjab Kings
May 2026
PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting summarised his side's fielding crisis in IPL 2026 with two lines that became the season's most-shared coaching quotes: 'It's like a virus. We've put a lot of catches down so far this season,' and the affectionate-exasperated 'It just looks like the ball is following him around everywhere he goes' — directed specifically at Shashank Singh's run of drops.
IPL franchises
April 2026
A single day of IPL 2026 produced 986 runs across two fixtures — the highest total of the season and one of the highest in IPL history. Cricket-statistical analysis attributed the bulk of the inflation to substandard fielding rather than to flat pitches or short boundaries, with multiple dropped sitters across both matches converting under-par totals into 200-plus innings.
IPL franchises
May 2026
Multiple concussion-substitution cases in IPL 2026 — including Mitchell Santner replaced by Shardul Thakur (MI), Lungi Ngidi replaced by Vipraj Nigam (DC), and others — have placed the like-for-like principle of the IPL's concussion-replacement rule under public scrutiny. The Santner-Thakur swap drew the loudest criticism for being arguably not like-for-like; other cases have been procedurally cleaner.
ICC / All Cricket
May 2026
The ICC has officially confirmed that retired out is a valid and legal dismissal — formal acknowledgement of a tactic that several T20 franchises have been using since the early 2020s. The clarification removes lingering ambiguity about whether the dismissal is acceptable under the Laws and gives franchises certainty for in-match tactical decisions.
ICC / IPL / All Cricket
May 2026
Following a string of contested boundary-catch decisions across IPL 2026 — Klaasen's catch by Phil Salt, Finn Allen's catch by Digvesh Rathi, Rajat Patidar's catch by Jason Holder — the ICC announced a structural reform requiring all standard third-umpire feeds for boundary catches to include the top-down boundary-cushion angle. The reform addresses a procedural gap that had been visible across multiple high-profile dismissals.
BCCI / IPL franchises
April 2026
Following the Romi Bhinder phone-in-dugout case in April 2026, the BCCI issued an internal clarification of PMOA (Player and Match Officials Areas) Article 4.1.1 — the rule that prohibits team managers from using phones in the dugout. The clarification reinforces the rule's strict application across all franchises and stipulates additional briefing requirements for support staff at the start of each season.
WPL franchises
January 2026
The 2026 Women's Premier League was played across only two venues rather than the IPL-style home-and-away format that some sections of cricket commentary had advocated for. The BCCI's logistics-and-broadcast-efficiency framing of the decision drew criticism from women's-cricket advocates who argued that the format was holding the WPL back from its full development potential.
Mumbai Indians
April 2026
Mumbai Indians head coach Mahela Jayawardene used the post-match press conference following the Santner-Thakur concussion substitution at Wankhede to publicly clarify the IPL's like-for-like protocol — confirming MI had followed the rule exactly and that the match referee's approval had been procedurally sound.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru vs Sunrisers Hyderabad
22 March 2026
The first controversy of IPL 2026 arrived in the tournament's opening match. Sunrisers Hyderabad batter Heinrich Klaasen was given out for 31 off 22 balls when Phil Salt held a low catch at the deep boundary off Romario Shepherd's bowling. Third umpire Rohan Pandit, working with the angles available to him during the review, ruled the catch fair on the basis of inconclusive evidence. Minutes later, broadcasters aired a top-angle replay that had not been provided during the review and which appeared to show the boundary cushion moving as Salt completed the take. Klaasen, by then walking off, was filmed in a heated exchange with the fourth umpire near the boundary rope.
Chennai Super Kings vs Delhi Capitals
11 April 2026
Delhi Capitals batter Nitish Rana was fined 25 per cent of his match fee and given one demerit point for an audible obscenity directed at fourth umpire Anish Sahasrabudhe during Delhi's defeat to Chennai Super Kings on 11 April 2026. The flashpoint came when Tristan Stubbs's request for a glove change — driven by Chennai's heavy humidity — was denied at the boundary rope. Rana, batting at the other end and watching the exchange, walked over to argue and crossed into Code of Conduct territory. The match referee judged the breach a Level 1 offence and Rana accepted the sanction.
Kolkata Knight Riders vs Lucknow Super Giants
9 April 2026
Kolkata Knight Riders opener Finn Allen was given out for 9 in the second over of his side's IPL 2026 chase against Lucknow Super Giants at Eden Gardens, after Digvesh Rathi took a low catch at the deep third boundary. Replays appeared to show Rathi's left foot brushing the rope. The on-field umpire ruled the catch fair without referring it upstairs; the third umpire later confirmed the decision under fan and broadcaster criticism, prompting KKR to issue a public statement that the call "should have gone upstairs" first.
Mumbai Indians vs Punjab Kings
16 April 2026
Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya and senior bowler Jasprit Bumrah were involved in a visible on-field disagreement over field placements during MI's defeat to Punjab Kings at the Wankhede Stadium on 16 April 2026. The incident, broadcast live, came during PBKS's chase as Prabhsimran Singh — eventually 80 not out and player of the match — was building his innings. After Bumrah dropped a catch from Pandya's bowling, Pandya was filmed reacting angrily towards his senior bowler. The defeat was MI's fourth in a row.
Rajasthan Royals vs Royal Challengers Bengaluru
10 April 2026
Rajasthan Royals team manager Ravinder Singh "Romi" Bhinder was caught on television using a mobile phone in the team dugout during the franchise's IPL 2026 match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru in Guwahati on 10 April 2026, in breach of Article 4.1.1 of the BCCI's IPL Player and Match Officials Areas (PMOA) Protocols. The BCCI's Anti-Corruption and Security Unit (ACSU) issued a show-cause notice the same week. After investigation, Bhinder was fined ₹1 lakh and given a formal warning; his explanation that a medical condition required phone access was accepted. No action was taken against fifteen-year-old prodigy Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, who had been seated next to him.
Australia Women
1 February 2023
Australian captain Meg Lanning took an indefinite break from cricket for undisclosed personal reasons, fuelling widespread speculation and raising questions about privacy in women's sport.
Afghanistan vs Pakistan
23 October 2023
A controversial short run call during the 2023 World Cup match between Afghanistan and Pakistan led to Afghan fans accusing the umpires of costing their team the match.
England vs Australia
31 July 2023
Stuart Broad, in his final Test, cheekily counted down to Steve Smith's supposedly final Test innings, winding up the Australian.
Australia vs India
9 June 2023
Travis Head and Mohammed Siraj had a heated exchange during the WTC Final at The Oval, with aggressive celebrations and verbal jousting.
India Women vs Bangladesh Women
25 July 2023
India captain Harmanpreet Kaur kicked the stumps after being given out LBW, earning a match ban and widespread criticism for her on-field behaviour.
India Women vs England Women
24 September 2022
Jhulan Goswami's farewell match at Lord's was overshadowed by the Mankad controversy, and many felt India's greatest fast bowler deserved a more befitting send-off.
England Women vs India Women
24 September 2022
Deepti Sharma ran out Charlotte Dean at the non-striker's end for backing up too far, sparking a fierce global debate about the spirit of cricket versus the laws of the game.
England U19
10 June 2022
Allegations of racism within the England youth cricket system emerged as part of the broader investigation into discrimination in English cricket triggered by Azeem Rafiq's testimony.
South Africa Women
15 August 2021
South Africa women's cricketers raised allegations of racial discrimination in team selection and treatment, echoing similar issues in the men's setup.
ECB / English Cricket
21 July 2021
The ECB's creation of 'The Hundred,' a 100-ball competition with new rules and city-based franchises, divided English cricket, with critics arguing it undermined the county system and was a solution to a problem that didn't exist.
India vs England
24-25 February 2021
Multiple controversial LBW decisions in the pink-ball Ahmedabad Test that finished inside two days, with questions about ball tracking accuracy on a turning pitch.
Sri Lanka
2 April 2021
Former Sri Lankan fast bowler Nuwan Zoysa was banned for six years by the ICC for match fixing and corruption offenses committed while working as a coach.
ICC / Various Nations
1 January 2020
The ICC's proposal to reduce Test matches from five days to four sparked fierce opposition from players and purists who argued it would fundamentally alter cricket's oldest format.
England Women
3 September 2019
England's wicketkeeper-batter Sarah Taylor was forced to retire at just 30 due to severe anxiety, raising important questions about mental health support in women's cricket.
Pakistan
1 November 2019
Pakistan fast bowler Naseem Shah's selection for Test cricket at a claimed age of 16 raised widespread questions about the accuracy of his birth records and age verification in Pakistani cricket.
India (selection controversy)
16 April 2019
After being overlooked for the 2019 World Cup squad in favor of Vijay Shankar — whom selectors described as a '3-dimensional' player — Ambati Rayudu posted a sarcastic tweet about ordering '3D glasses' for watching the World Cup.
Sri Lanka
15 March 2019
Sri Lankan legend Sanath Jayasuriya was charged by the ICC for failing to cooperate with an anti-corruption investigation and for destroying evidence.
India vs Various
2019-06-16
MS Dhoni's stump microphone picked up his constant instructions, tactical chatter, and hilarious commentary from behind the stumps, entertaining fans worldwide.
Australia vs South Africa
24 March 2018
Cameron Bancroft was caught on camera using sandpaper to tamper with the ball during the Cape Town Test, leading to bans for Bancroft, captain Steve Smith, and vice-captain David Warner in the most damaging scandal in Australian cricket history.
Various
2018-12-30
Shane Warne's commentary career was filled with entertaining moments, from his obsessive pizza ordering to his often wildly wrong predictions and enthusiastic analysis.
Various
1 January 2017
The 'Umpire's Call' element of DRS, where marginal LBW decisions are upheld even when ball-tracking shows the ball hitting the stumps, has been one of cricket's most divisive ongoing controversies.
Australia vs England
November-December 2017
Stuart Broad was again at the centre of a caught-behind controversy in the Ashes, this time in Australia, with DRS technology at the heart of the debate.
Pakistan / PSL franchises
15 February 2017
Pakistani fast bowler Mohammad Irfan was suspended during PSL 2017 for failing to report approaches from fixers during the tournament.
India vs England
November 2016
The third umpire failed to check for a front-foot no-ball on a wicket-taking delivery, a standard protocol that was missed. The dismissal stood without the check being made.
South Africa vs Australia
19 November 2016
South African captain Faf du Plessis was found guilty of ball tampering for applying mint-laden saliva to the ball during the Hobart Test against Australia.
Melbourne Renegades vs Hobart Hurricanes
2016-01-04
Chris Gayle awkwardly flirted with reporter Mel McLaughlin during a live pitch-side interview, telling her 'don't blush baby.'
Bangladesh U19
28 December 2016
The Bangladesh U19 team bus was reportedly attacked by locals in Sri Lanka during a youth tour, injuring several young players and raising serious security concerns for touring youth teams.
India vs South Africa
25 November 2015
The Nagpur Test pitch for the 2015 India-South Africa series was rated 'poor' by the ICC after the match ended in under three days on a pitch that crumbled and turned square from day one.
Rajasthan Royals
22 July 2015
Raj Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals and husband of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, was banned for life from cricket for his involvement in betting during IPL 2013.
England vs India
13 July 2014
James Anderson allegedly pushed Ravindra Jadeja in the players' corridor at Trent Bridge during the 2014 Test series, leading to ICC charges and hearings.
BPL franchises
1 February 2014
Former Pakistan all-rounder Azhar Mahmood reported a corruption approach during the Bangladesh Premier League, highlighting the vulnerability of T20 leagues to fixing.
Scottish cricket clubs
28 February 2014
Pakistani-born cricketer Naved Arif was found guilty of spot-fixing in Scottish domestic cricket, receiving a five-year ban from Cricket Scotland.
England vs Australia
10-14 July 2013
Stuart Broad edged a ball clearly to slip but was given not out. He refused to walk, and Australia had no DRS reviews left.
Australia vs England (off-field)
13 June 2013
David Warner punched Joe Root in the face at a bar in Birmingham during the ICC Champions Trophy, leading to Warner's suspension.
Australia vs England
12 August 2013
Australian coach Darren Lehmann urged Australian fans to give Stuart Broad such a hard time during the return Ashes that he'd 'want to go home and cry.'
England vs Australia
12 July 2013
Stuart Broad stood his ground after a massive edge was caught at slip, refusing to walk. The umpire gave him not out, infuriating Australia.
Rajasthan Royals vs Various
16 May 2013
Three Rajasthan Royals players - S. Sreesanth, Ankeet Chavan, and Ajit Chandila - were arrested by Delhi Police for spot-fixing in IPL 2013, agreeing to concede a set number of runs in specific overs.
Chennai Super Kings
24 May 2013
Gurunath Meiyappan, the son-in-law of BCCI president N. Srinivasan and team principal of Chennai Super Kings, was arrested for betting on IPL matches.
South Africa vs Pakistan
15 October 2013
Faf du Plessis was caught on camera rubbing the ball against the zipper of his trouser pocket during a Test against Pakistan, constituting ball tampering.
England vs Australia
2013-07-10
Stuart Broad edged massively to slip but stood his ground and was given not out by the umpire, brazenly refusing to walk in one of the Ashes' most shameless moments.
International Cricket Council
1 July 2012
Alan Isaac — the New Zealand chartered accountant who became ICC President (2012–2014) — took an unusual route from a Wellington accountancy practice to cricket's most senior elected office, with no playing or coaching background.
Various / ICC Rules
1 October 2012
Frequent changes to PowerPlay and fielding restriction rules in ODIs have been controversial, with critics arguing constant tinkering has made the format confusing and excessively batting-friendly.
South Africa
13 June 2012
South African fast bowler Wayne Parnell admitted to meeting a bookmaker during the IPL but claimed he did not engage in any corrupt activity.
South Africa / IPL franchise
1 May 2012
South African batsman JP Duminy reported that he was approached by a suspected bookmaker during IPL 2012, and was praised for following proper reporting procedures.
Australia U19
20 August 2012
Australia's U19 team was criticised for excessive sledging and aggressive behaviour during the 2012 U19 World Cup, raising concerns about the culture being instilled in youth cricket.
India vs Pakistan
2 March 2010
Gambhir and Afridi had multiple heated confrontations across several matches, including a famous shoulder bump during the Asia Cup 2010.
Australia vs Pakistan
2010-02-01
Shahid Afridi was caught on camera biting the cricket ball in an apparent ball-tampering attempt, leading to a ban and worldwide ridicule.
Australia vs England
2010-11-25
Peter Siddle took an Ashes hat-trick on his birthday, but the story that captured everyone's imagination was that the vegan fast bowler celebrated with bananas instead of beer.
Indian Premier League
1 April 2009
A strategic timeout in cricket is a brief, scheduled break in play during a T20 innings — most prominently used in the Indian Premier League — that allows the fielding and batting teams to consult tactically and that gives broadcasters a defined window for advertising. The IPL introduced the strategic timeout in its second season in 2009, and the rule has since become a defining structural feature of the tournament. Each innings has two strategic timeouts of two and a half minutes each, one taken by the bowling side and one by the batting side, both within fixed over-windows.
Pakistan vs Various
3 March 2009
After the 2009 Lahore attack, Pakistan was forced to play its home matches in the UAE for nearly a decade, at enormous financial and emotional cost to the country's cricket.
Pakistan vs Sri Lanka
3 March 2009
Twelve armed gunmen attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team bus near Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, injuring six players and killing eight people, ending international cricket in Pakistan for nearly a decade.
Multiple IPL Franchises
18 April 2008
The Indian Premier League, launched in 2008 by Lalit Modi, revolutionized cricket's commercial model with city-based franchise T20 cricket, creating enormous wealth but also concerns about corruption, player prioritization, and the future of international cricket.
Australia vs India
2-6 January 2008
One of the most controversial Tests ever — terrible umpiring decisions, racial abuse allegations, and India threatening to abandon the tour.
Australia vs India
2008-03-27
Andrew Symonds flattened a streaker who ran onto the field during an ODI, shoulder-charging him with the force of a rugby player and sending him sprawling.
India vs England
2007-09-19
Yuvraj Singh hit Stuart Broad for six consecutive sixes in a single over during the 2007 T20 World Cup, the fastest fifty in T20I history.
England vs India
2007-09-05
Just days after Yuvraj Singh's six sixes, Dimitri Mascarenhas hit five sixes off one Yuvraj Singh over in an ODI, in a delicious irony that cricket fans loved.
England vs South Africa
26 July 2004
South Africa were accused of ball tampering during the third Test against England at The Oval in 2004, with the ball being replaced by umpires.
New Zealand vs South Africa
2004-03-12
New Zealand opener Mark Richardson celebrated his Test centuries with a pre-planned robotic dance routine that became one of cricket's most endearing traditions.
Zimbabwe
10 February 2003
Zimbabwe players Andy Flower and Henry Olonga wore black armbands during the 2003 World Cup to mourn 'the death of democracy' in Zimbabwe, in a courageous protest against Robert Mugabe's regime.
India vs England
1 March 2003
Sachin Tendulkar was given out LBW off a ball that appeared to be going well over the stumps, sparking outrage among Indian fans.
Australia vs Various
2 January 2003
Ricky Ponting was frequently involved in heated arguments with umpires throughout his career, often pointing his finger and showing visible dissent.
Various
2003-02-01
New Zealand umpire Billy Bowden became famous for his flamboyant, theatrical umpiring style including his signature 'crooked finger of doom' dismissal.
Pakistan vs New Zealand
8 May 2002
New Zealand abandoned their tour of Pakistan in 2002 after a bomb blast outside their hotel in Karachi killed 14 people, marking one of the earliest security-related disruptions to international cricket.
India vs England
13 July 2002
Sourav Ganguly removed his shirt and waved it from the Lord's balcony after India's dramatic NatWest Trophy victory, in response to Andrew Flintoff's similar act in Mumbai.
India
5 December 2000
Former India captain Mohammad Azharuddin was banned for life from cricket after a CBI investigation found he had been involved in match-fixing, ending the career of one of India's most stylish batsmen.
Pakistan vs Sri Lanka
15 June 2000
Waqar Younis was found guilty of ball tampering during an ODI against Sri Lanka after he was caught scratching the ball to generate reverse swing.
South Africa vs England
18 January 2000
Hansie Cronje engineered a contrived result at Centurion after rain had washed out most of the Test, later revealed to have been done at the behest of a bookmaker in exchange for a leather jacket and cash.
Australia
1989-05-01
David Boon allegedly consumed 52 cans of beer on the flight from Australia to England for the 1989 Ashes series, setting a legendary drinking record.
Pakistan, England
1987-12-09
Days before the Mike Gatting-Shakoor Rana finger-pointing row, Chris Broad refused to leave the crease for over a minute after being given out caught behind, an incident that helped poison the 1987 Faisalabad Test.
India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
1984-04-06
Emirati businessman Abdul Rahman Bukhatir built a cricket stadium in Sharjah and, between 1981 and 1984, turned it into the first major neutral venue for international cricket — culminating in the inaugural 1984 Asia Cup.
India, Zimbabwe
1983-06-18
India were 17 for 5 against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells in the 1983 World Cup when Kapil Dev walked in and made an unbeaten 175 — the highest individual ODI score at the time and the innings that turned the tournament.
England vs Various
1982-07-01
Cricket crowds have produced some of the funniest sledges in sport, from heckling players about their personal lives to creative musical chants.
Multiple (WSC vs Establishment Cricket)
24 November 1977
Media mogul Kerry Packer signed 51 of the world's best cricketers to a rival competition after being denied TV broadcast rights, fundamentally transforming professional cricket.
South Africa vs Various (Cancelled Tours)
1 January 1971
India was among the first nations to sever cricketing ties with South Africa over apartheid, and the broader international boycott eventually led to South Africa's complete isolation from world cricket for 21 years.
West Indies vs India
1962-03-23
Six days after Charlie Griffith's bouncer fractured Nari Contractor's skull, India promoted the 21-year-old vice-captain Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi to lead the side in the third Test at Bridgetown on 23 March 1962. At 21 years and 77 days he became the youngest Test captain in history — a record he held for 42 years. Pataudi had lost the use of his right eye in a car crash in Hove eight months earlier.
England vs Australia
1953-08-19
On 19 August 1953, England regained the Ashes for the first time since the 1932-33 Bodyline series by beating Australia by 8 wickets at The Oval. The Coronation summer of Queen Elizabeth II ended with Denis Compton sweeping Arthur Morris to the boundary at 5.53pm and Brian Johnston shouting 'It's the Ashes!' on BBC radio. The match closed twenty years of Australian dominance and crowned Len Hutton's first full year as captain.
England v West Indies
1933-07-22
Six months after Bodyline, Learie Constantine and Manny Martindale opened up with sustained leg-theory bouncers at Douglas Jardine in the Old Trafford Test. Jardine, captaining England, stood up and made 127 — his only Test century — proving, at considerable physical cost, that he could face the tactic he had unleashed on Australia.
South Africa, England, Australia
1909-12-01
After their breakthrough 1907 tour of England, South Africa's googly quartet — Reggie Schwarz, Bert Vogler, Aubrey Faulkner and Gordon White — anchored the side through the 1909-10 home Tests against England (won 3-2 by South Africa) and the 1910-11 tour of Australia. Vogler took 36 wickets in the 1909-10 home series; Faulkner emerged as the world's best all-rounder by 1910.
Australia, England
1902-09-01
Jack Saunders, the left-arm spin bowler from Victoria, took 123 first-class wickets at 16.95 on the 1902 tour of England — bowling alongside Hugh Trumble in the side that won the Ashes 2-1. Saunders bowled the last ball of Fred Tate's Test at Old Trafford and was Australia's leading wicket-taker on the tour after Trumble.
Parsis v Europeans
1892-08-26
On 26 August 1892, the annual Parsis v Europeans fixture at Bombay Gymkhana was played as a two-innings match — the first first-class match on Indian soil. The match was drawn, but it formalised what would become the Bombay Tournament: the first organised cricket competition in India, founded with the encouragement of Bombay Governor Lord Harris and run continuously until 1946. Mehellasha Pavri, the Parsi fast bowler who had toured England in 1888, took several wickets.
MCC
1839-05-15
In 1839 the MCC formally engaged William Lillywhite and James Broadbridge as paid practice bowlers at Lord's — bringing the Sussex roundarm pair, by now in their forties, onto the MCC ground staff. The arrangement marked the moment at which the world's leading club institutionalised roundarm bowling at its own headquarters, a decade after the law had been changed.
Sussex
1839-03-01
Sussex County Cricket Club, founded at Brighton on 1 March 1839, was the first formally constituted county cricket club in the world. Built on the Sussex cricketing tradition that William Lillywhite and James Broadbridge had carried since the 1820s, the club provided the model — committee, subscriptions, ground, professional staff — that all subsequent county cricket clubs followed.
Sussex, Players, South
1839-08-12
By 1839 William Lillywhite was 47 years old — an age at which most cricketers of any era have long since retired — and was still indisputably the leading bowler in England. The 1839 season saw him take wickets in every major fixture: Players vs Gentlemen at Lord's, North vs South, and the Sussex county matches. His longevity at the top of the bowling lists is one of the remarkable features of the late 1830s.
Sussex
1837-06-15
Through the 1830s Sussex was, with Kent, one of the two leading counties in England. The county had been the cradle of roundarm bowling — Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge had been the bowlers who forced the law change of 1828 — and through the 1830s the Sussex eleven, built around Lillywhite's bowling and Tom Box behind the stumps, was a regular winner against all comers.
Sussex; Players
1835-08-01
James Broadbridge of Duncton was the second half — alongside William Lillywhite — of the Sussex roundarm bowling partnership that dominated the late 1820s and 1830s. Where Lillywhite was the relentless metronome, Broadbridge bowled with sharper turn and a higher arm, often pushing the limits of the shoulder-height rule. Through the 1830s the two formed the most-feared opening attack in England.
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1834-09-01
Through the 1830s a small group of surviving Hambledon veterans — William Beldham 'Silver Billy', John Nyren and a handful of others — were the last living link to the great Hambledon era of the 1770s and 1780s. Cowden Clarke's transcription of Nyren's recollections (1833) captured their world for posterity, and the 'old buffers' became a fixture of cricketing nostalgia for the rest of the Victorian period.
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1833-04-01
In April 1833 the publisher Effingham Wilson of the Royal Exchange brought out *The Young Cricketer's Tutor*, written by the elderly Hambledon player John Nyren and edited by his friend Charles Cowden Clarke. The slim duodecimo combined a manual of technique with a memoir of the great Hambledon men of the 1770s and 1780s and is generally regarded as the first significant book in cricket literature.
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1833-04-15
The second half of John Nyren's 1833 *Young Cricketer's Tutor* — bound in as the appendix *The Cricketers of My Time* — was the first sustained piece of cricket prose ever written. Across some sixty pages Nyren remembered the great Hambledon men of the 1770s and 1780s with affection and precision, and in doing so created the literary mode — nostalgic, particular, character-driven — that has shaped cricket writing ever since.
Sussex; Players
1832-06-10
Thomas Box of Ardingly took over the Sussex wicketkeeping gloves in the early 1830s and held them for an extraordinary thirty years — a tenure unmatched in the nineteenth century. Standing up to William Lillywhite's roundarm at the height of its powers, Box developed a reputation for clean takes and stumpings off length deliveries that no later keeper of the era surpassed.
Sussex
1829-07-15
By the close of the 1829 season William Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge — both Sussex roundarm bowlers — had established themselves as the leading bowling pair in England. Together they took 134 wickets in major matches that summer. Their dominance, on the back of the 1828 legalisation of roundarm to the elbow, was the moment roundarm definitively replaced underarm at the top of English cricket.
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1828-05-01
Months after the inconclusive Sussex v England trial matches, the MCC amended Rule 10 of the Laws of Cricket in 1828 to permit a bowler to raise his hand level with his elbow at the moment of delivery. The change was a compromise — it stopped short of legalising shoulder-height roundarm — but it shifted the legal frontier and gave umpires implicit licence to look the other way at deliveries that crossed it.
Sussex vs England
1827-07-25
To resolve the running argument over roundarm bowling, the MCC sanctioned three matches in the summer of 1827 between Sussex — whose bowlers Lillywhite and Broadbridge would deliver roundarm — and an England XI bowling only underarm. Played at Sheffield (4-6 June), Lord's (18-19 June) and Brighton (23-25 July), the series was meant to test whether roundarm should be legalised. Sussex won the first two and lost the third, the trial was declared inconclusive, and the law was nudged a step further the following year.
Sussex
1827-09-01
Through the mid-1820s Sussex established themselves as the strongest county side in England, on the strength of the roundarm bowling of Lillywhite and Broadbridge. The Sussex team was acclaimed by the press as 'champion county' from 1826 onwards — the first time the title was applied informally to a single county side and the seed of the formal County Championship that would emerge sixty years later.
Sussex
1825-06-01
Jem Broadbridge of Duncton, three years younger than Lillywhite and his partner at the other end, was the second of Sussex's twin roundarm spearheads of the 1820s. A right-arm fast-medium bowler and hard-hitting batsman, he was according to Haygarth 'for some seasons the best general cricketer in England, both as batsman, bowler and single wicket player'. He walked the 60-mile round trip from Duncton to Brighton to play for Sussex.
MCC vs Kent
1822-07-15
Opening the bowling for Kent against MCC at Lord's on 15 July 1822, the Kent farmer John Willes — pioneer of the new roundarm action — was no-balled by the umpire for raising his hand above the prescribed level. Willes threw the ball down, walked off the ground, mounted his horse and rode out of cricket forever. He was the first man to be no-balled in a first-class match for an illegal bowling action and never played another important fixture.
Norfolk and various
1820-07-01
Fuller Pilch, born in Horningtoft, Norfolk in March 1804, made his first appearance at Lord's at the age of sixteen in 1820, playing for Norfolk against MCC. By the mid-1820s he was acclaimed as the best batsman in England, a status he held for nearly thirty years until W.G. Grace appeared in the 1860s. He pioneered forward play against the new roundarm bowling and gave his name to a famous attacking stroke called 'Pilch's Poke'.
Eton College vs Harrow School
1818-07-30
Thirteen years after the inaugural 1805 meeting at Thomas Lord's old ground in Dorset Square — the match in which Lord Byron had played for Harrow with a runner — Eton and Harrow met again at the new Lord's at St John's Wood in July 1818. The rematch restarted what would, from 1822, become the longest-running annual schoolboy fixture in cricket. By the late nineteenth century Eton v Harrow at Lord's was one of the great social occasions of the London summer.
Kent and various private XIs
1816-07-15
Through the 1810s the Kent gentleman cricketer John Willes of Tonford persisted with a delivery action that broke the laws of cricket: the arm raised level with the elbow, often higher, in defiance of the underarm law. According to Arthur Haygarth, Willes had picked up the action from his sister Christiana, who bowled to him in their garden when he was unwell. Through trial games for Kent and private elevens he forced the issue match by match, was no-balled repeatedly, and laid the foundation for the eventual legalisation of roundarm in 1828 and overarm in 1864.
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1816-05-01
In 1816, with John Willes and a small but growing band of Kent and Sussex bowlers persistently raising their arm above the elbow, the MCC revised Law 10 to spell out that bowling must be 'underhand, with the hand below the elbow' and that any horizontal extension of the arm should be called no-ball. The reform was a deliberate effort to suppress roundarm. It failed. Within twelve years the law had to be rewritten in roundarm's favour.
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1815-04-01
Around 1815 the Petersfield bat-maker William Small — son of the Hambledon professional John Small Senior — began producing cricket bats with a recognisable 'shoulder', tapering from a thicker blade up to a narrower handle. The design replaced the curved, club-like underarm bat that had been standard since the eighteenth century and is the immediate ancestor of the modern cricket bat shape.
Hambledon vs Petersfield
1811-08-24
On 24 August 1811 Hambledon village played Petersfield on Broadhalfpenny Down — the last village fixture played there before the ground was given over almost wholly to grazing. The match marked the close of continuous cricket on the most famous strip in the eighteenth-century game. Cricket would not be regularly played at Broadhalfpenny again until the late nineteenth-century revival.
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1808-08-15
In August 1808 a small group of surviving Hambledon Club veterans gathered at the Bat & Ball Inn at Broadhalfpenny Down — the inn that had served as the club's headquarters in its great years — for an informal reunion. Beldham, Walker, Aburrow, Sueter and a handful of fielders met for the day; a young John Nyren attended and made the notes that would become the basis of his 1833 memoir.
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1800-08-01
Four years after its last grand-club meeting, at which 'no Gentlemen were present', the Hambledon Club reformed in 1800 as a village cricket club. Stripped of the naval officers and London patrons who had made it a national power in the 1770s and 1780s, the rebuilt club played local matches around Broadhalfpenny Down and Windmill Down through the early 1800s. It was the quiet, modest survival of cricket's first great institution after its glory had passed.
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1800-06-01
While the Hambledon Club drifted into village obscurity through the 1800s, the boyhood of John Nyren — son of the old captain Richard Nyren, raised at the Bat and Ball Inn opposite Broadhalfpenny Down, taught the game by his uncle Richard Newland of Slindon — was already laying the foundation for the most influential cricket memoir ever written. Three decades later that boyhood would reach print as The Young Cricketer's Tutor (1833).