Cricket fans are an odd bunch, they are pretty much all good looking, extremely intelligent and brilliant in the sack.
Occasionally they do come up with theories that have no basis in fact or common sense.
Let me tell you about some of my favourite ones.
My father hated Kerry Packer, almost as much as I hate his scientologist son James.
During the late 80’s and early 90’s this was at its worst.
If a team won a one day game when they were the underdog, dad was at his worst. Bloody Packer is rigging the matches again, even I couldn’t get out to this mob. This coming from a man that spent 25 years batting at 11.
But the one series I really remember was against India. It was the finals and Australia was playing a shocker. Eventually an Indian batsman hit the ball straight up in the air off Steve Waugh, it went 83 miles in the air and Steve found himself under it.
Somehow he dropped it.
This led my father into a tirade about how Australia were losing the game on purpose, so the series would go into a third deciding game.
Now even the casual cricket fan would know that of all people in world cricket, Steve would be the last player to throw a game of cricket for his country. And even my dad knows this, but at that one moment his extreme hatred of Kerry Packer took over and poor Steve and his fumbled attempt were chief scapegoat.
Another great theory is our Sime. The man who longs for the glory days when Geoffrey Marsh averaged mid thirties and was thought of as a good opening batsmen.
His hatred of KP is as virile, as it is unfounded. He believes the man is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the current generation of cricketers.
He plays across the line, he’s South African, his mouth is bigger than his talent, he has weird hair do’s and he’s not a test cricketers @sshole (his words not mine).
Even when KP was smashing McGrath and Warne, Sime would not rate him.
It is the Warne & KP relationship where Sime takes his hatred of KP to all new levels.
The 2005 ashes series was a pretty close affair, and on the last day had Australia bowled out England, Freddie’s drinking problem wouldn’t be so bad. Early on, KP got an edge to first slip, where Warne his Hampshire team mate was standing.
Contrary to the perception the Australian media purports, Australians do drop catches. And even though Warne almost single handedly won us that series with the bat and ball, his one big mistake was what probably cost them victory on that day.
This now leads Sime to slightly entertain the thought that maybe Warne was giving his mate a chance, and that it backfired, as KP spent all day in the middle saving the series for England.
Warne giving a South African born English cricketer a chance in the 4th innings of a game Australia has to win to save the series, how likely is that? Friendship or no friendship, that seems insane.
And what is my conspiracy theory, I believe Sourav Ganguly is a giant alien lizard.
