4 Supernatural incidents in cricket

“Have you ever been alone at night? Thought you heard footsteps behind and turned around and…no one’s there. And as you quicken up your pace, you find it hard to look again because you are sure that someone’s there…”As Steve Harris strums up a harmonious bassline, Bruce Dickinson shouts out these lines from Iron Maiden’s famous track, Fear of the Dark, giving an eerie feel of familiarity whenever one listens to it.We have all experienced weird things around us at some point or the other. Sometimes, you wake up in the middle of the night for no particular reason only to find yourself ceaselessly perspiring and feeling the presence of another entity in the room.Sometimes, you are awoken by the sound of an open water tap in your washroom and you are perplexed because only you have access to the washroom and no-one else.Sometimes, some feelings are so strong that it refuses to leave the mind for a long time.Supernatural incidents could occur in any given place or time and, most terrifyingly, with anyone. Paranormal activities can be found even in cricket as there have been quite a few reports of such events from the gentlemen’s game.And here are 4 such incidents…

#1 Haris Sohail

Haris Sohail of Pakistan

While Pakistan’s ODI cricket team has become a nightmare for their fans, all-rounder Haris Sohail had his own demonic interventions. He slept in his hotel room peacefully at the Rydges Latimar Hotel at Christchurch when suddenly his bed shook for no apparent reason.

He woke up and called the team manager, Naveed Cheeva, quicker than it takes Shahid Afridi to do or say something stupid.

When Cheeva went to check on him, he found that the player was visibly shaken and feverish, with a “nightmare.” Sohail, however, was adamant that he was a victim of supernatural experience--so much that he had troubling coping with it for quite some time.

One can never say for sure what exactly happened, but what one can be sure of is that Haris Sohail has never slept another night without chanting some prayer verses ever since.

#2 England cricket team

The Langham Hotel is considered one of London’s haunted places

Being an England fan is like a rollercoaster ride. This time last year, the English were haunted by the performances of their cricket team. They had lost the Ashes 5-0 and were brought to the edge of the sword by India.

But that wasn’t the only haunting thing.

In the rooms and corridor of Langham Hotel, spirits wander in search of peace while ruining the harmony of the people that stay there – and many members of the England cricket team were victims of it.

“One night, I woke up in the middle of the night, at around 1.30 am and I was convinced there was a presence in the room,” said Stuart Broad. He then went on to describe how the taps in the bathroom turned themselves on and off and he had no clue of what was happening.

Alistair Cook and Ben Stokes were also some who had the misery of sleepless nights at the same hotel. Moeen Ali’s missus along with the other halves of many other England players, apparently, refused to stay in the hotel as they were terrified at the concept of a sleepover with ghosts.

The 150 year old hotel is reported to have at least 7 ghosts that roam the hallways. They didn’t get the “most haunted hotel in England” tag for no reason.

#3 Shane Watson

Shane Watson was a victim of many circumstances one night in Lumley Castle

This one is one hell of a confusing and conflicting story. Such is the mazy feeling of this story that not even Shane Watson could decipher what happened as he has both claimed that he “saw something” before opining that it might have been a repercussion of overactive imagination.

The Australian was fed with horror stories of Lily while he was on his way to the Lumley Castle. Lily, it was told, was thrown down the well by 2 priests—while her husband was fighting in a war—because she refused to convert to Catholicism. This incident happened in late 14th century and to this day, her ghost rises from the well and roams the corridor at night.

Some say that Watson fled his courtyard room and slept on the floor in Brett Lee’s room before being assigned to room number 46, where he slept without any further trouble. Now, the fun part—or less so—is that room number 46 was where Lily was tortured prior to being drowned in the well.

Other sources claim that the Australian was given room number 46 right from the beginning, where he saw Lily right at the edge of his bed—something that scared the wits out of him. He then left the room and, as if his luck wasn’t bad enough, had to stay in the reception area before sleeping on the floor of his team-mate’s room as there were no vacant rooms on that particular day.

No-one will ever really know what truly happened as Watson himself hasn’t been able to make up his mind as to what he saw, but it will remain as one of cricket’s greatest spooky stories.

#4 Djinns of Feroz Shah Kotla

Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium has a sizeable presence of the supernatural in its vicinity

Many know Feroz Shah Kotla as one of India’s most prominent cricket stadiums where many cricket matches have taken place and were even made memorable by the home team winning them.

But what many don’t know is that around the veneer of this classic stadium lies the ruins of a devastated fort that was built by Sultan Feroz Shah Tughlaq. There are rumoured to be apparitions which are seen in the area. Not only that, people pray to the apparitions as well.

These apparitions, known as the djinns of Kotla, have long held the mystical beliefs of Delhi intact. It is believed that these Djinns have “governments” of their own and people visit them, light candles, pray to them and write their problems in letters and attach photocopies of them so that it reaches the right Djinn—in other words, the djinn who owns jurisdiction right of a particular type of a case.

This practice began in the late 1970s when a ‘fakir’—or mystic man—named Laddoo Shah came started living in the ruins. The trend that began then has been carried on ever since as every Thursday, flocks of people visit the ruins and seek help from the Djinns.

And, if stories are to be believed, the Djinns do help in the fulfillment of the people’s wishes.