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It is amazing to think how players who turn up for the same color, the same team, day in and day out, can carry on a disturbing personal relationship. It is a sad truth that even the happiest team photo has traces of resentment.It just so happens that some personalities are not made to bond well, be it with members of the same side or the opposition. For how much do nationalities divide humanity after all?There are also some individuals who never get along with anybody - players, coach, personnel or fans. Looking at a few instances in history it seems Sri Lanka and New Zealand have some of the most disciplined players with hardly any instance reported of infighting.Here's a look at the few most media-highlighted ones over the years:
#10 Kevin Pietersen - Matt Prior
This can be considered to be the greatest one of the greatest blow-ups in cricket, in recent times.
KP, a great match winner in every right, had numerous falling outs with several members of the England team but the most famous one was with his once buddy, wicket-keeper Matt Prior. After his sacking the star batsman had come out with his autoiography, in which he wrote:
“It’s only Prior that I’d seriously have real issues with, because of how he was portrayed as a team man, the heart and soul of the dressing room, when he was getting up to the stuff he was getting up to.”, writes Pietersen.
He also criticised coach Andy Flower as having built a regimen of fear, and claimed the senior bowlers like Graeme Swann, Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad formed a clique that intimidated young players. Consistently referring to him as “The Big Cheese” , Pietersen describes the ex-wicketkeeper as a loudmouthed “classroom bully strutting around the dressing room, showing off his new clothes and telling everyone about the amazing night outs he has”.
Prior’s vice-captaincy was also something he disapproved as he writes, “Being vice-captain seemed to go to his head. Sad, especially when he isn’t really vice-captain material at all.” Pietersen also thought Prior was selfish, but double standards were used while dealing with him. He records one instance in Australia where the wicket-keeper had gotten concerned with his Big Bash team (in which he wasn’t even playing) when his country was losing in a Test Match.
In response Matt Prior has promised to retaliate with his own version of things in the near future. But the relationship of the former mates clearly stands in acerbic ruins at the moment.
#9 Harbhajan Singh - S. Sreesanth
Arguably the most famous scandal within Indian cricket, the "slapgate" made a huge uproar coming when it did in 2008. After a match between Kings XI Punjab and Mumbai Indians, the Indians skipper Harbhajan allegedly slapped the Punjab pacer when he went to shake his hands after the match. The cameras picked up Sreesanth crying after the incident, and it created a huge controversy at the time.
The mercurial off spinner was banned for the rest of the tournament by match referee Farokh Engineer who found the incident to have been totally "unprovoked".
The two players did turn up before the media later on and cleared the air. But things once again got ugly in 2013 when a boil-up between Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir during that year's IPL lead to a media created comparison with the Harbhajan-Sreesanth incident.
Sreesanth had taken to Twitter then to make the following tweets:
"To be whr Iam ..I ve no complaints..but now I want u All to know the truth. He (Bhajji) never Slapped me.the video will show u all..wt he did.“All blamed me for getting emotional ..??c mon who doesn’t get emotional whn u know the person who u worship is a backstabbing person Nd.“I want the world to c it..Whn I went to shake hands afte the match..he had lost it..he had already planned to hit me(elbow me)all his anger” he said.
Ever since then it had been a downhill road for the now beleagured paceman (caught up in match-fixing scandal). The two have however appeared before media numerous time since.
#8 Michael Clarke - Simon Katich
The two players who for some time formed a vital cog of the all-conquering Australian side of the last decade, reportedly didn’t always see eye-to-eye. The sourness started after Katich had grabbed the erstwhile Australian vice-captain by the collar over some differences regarding the singing of the team song after a Test match win at the SCG, in 2009.
Clarke, who was with girlfriend Lara Bingle wanted to leave early in order to be with her, and hence wanted the song to be sung quickly. Katich and a few other senior players (including captain Ricky Ponting) were already unhappy with his atitude, and this action was the final straw that provoked the infamous collision.
Though generally regarded as a popular player in the dressing room, Katich wasn't the only senior who had problems with Clarke. The current Australian skipper's falling out with Shane Watson, including the homework-gate controversy, reached an infamous crescendo when Clarke described the all-rounder's influence to be a ‘cancer’ to the team.
After Katich was dropped from Cricket Australia’s central contract the two had come before media to clear the air regarding their relationship. However years later, Katich did mention to the media that the incident might have partially been the reason for his exclusion from the team and prolonged snub.
“I mean to be brutally honest obviously what happened in the dressing room here a few years ago didn't help my cause. And obviously the captain and coach are selectors.”
#7 Shane Warne - Steve Waugh - Adam Gilchrist
The only thing in common between these three men is they all played for a champion side. Widely contrasting but tremendously lovable characters, they didn’t gel that great off a cricket field. For over a decade and more, fans got to see astonishing performances by the three on the field but underneath it all, there was a story of a fallout that remained untold.
There’s no clear evidence of the cause, but one can come to come to some conclusions – like from the incident of Waugh pipping Warne for captaincy in 1999, then dropping the latter for a West Indian tour a few months later.
Neither of Waugh and Gilchrist were too fond of the champion spinner’s flawed discipline either. Also, both men were considered close to coach John Buchanan, someone who Warne summarily hated.
There’s never been any direct criticism of one another but Warne rated Waugh at 26 and Gilchrist at 20 in his list of 50 top cricketers, while at the same time rating the other Waugh - Mark at 12. Also, his reference to Steve as more of "a batsman who saved matches rather than won them", and his definition of Gilchrist as "still a batsman-keeper rather than the other way around" are more examples of bias.
Steve Waugh in his autobiography,also describes Warne as someone who "loved to be loved", and portrays him as a fierce competitor but as someone who needed constant reassurance and support. They seemed to subtly nudge each other where it hurt the most.
Having said all that though, it would be unfair to describe their relationship as exclusively acrimonious as there has always existed a plethora of respect in between them regarding each others’ abilities. Gilchrist has in fact gone on record a number of times claiming that keeping to Warne was the high point of his entire career.
#6 Shoaib Akhtar - Mohammed Asif
Feuds and Pakistani cricket have gone hand in hand for ages. One hears legends of historic infighting between Imran Khan and Javed Miandad, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis etc. If you manage to leave the Pakistani dressing room with your most recognizable trait being your ability to create controversies, then it speaks volumes about you.
Shoaib Akhtar would just about manage that tag.
Akhtar’s most infamous headline-making dressing room story was when he hit Mohammed Asif with a bat during a Pakistan training session during the 2007 T20 World Cup.
Later the player had said that he struck Asif by accident during a fight with Shahid Afridi. “Please don’t portray me as a villain,” he had told the media. “I am not a villain.”
#5 Graeme Smith - Herschelle Gibbs
One team that can considered fairly alien to accusations of infighting and disunity is South Africa. Not a lot of reports of antagonism between team members have made headlines over the years. Probably the second biggest scandal to have rocked their cricketing scene after the policy of appartheid is match-fixing. The epicentre of the ugliness as well as a large portion of media attention was around the South Africans and Hansie Cronje.
Another player who was implicated in the scandal, albeit to a smaller extent, was Herschelle Gibbs – whose autobiography reads more like a drug-crime-thriller-cum-50 Shades of Grey. In the rare moments that he deviated to talk about cricket, Gibbs accused Grame Smith of being too powerful as captain. He claimed that Smith would effectively bully coach Mickey Arthur and form cliques with dominant personalities in the dressing room.
In response Smith had shot back with, “I think it shows more about his own insecurities that anything else”, and Gibbs never played for South Africa again.
#4 Sunil Gavaskar - Kapil Dev
For some reason, Kapil Dev was much more of an instant success with the Indian fans than Sunil Gavaskar.
During the World Cup campaign of 1983, on the day India were to play Zimbabwe, Gavaskar was informed about in his inclusion in the team (he was injured previously) by a journalist barely minutes before the start. Lack of preparation led to an early dismissal, and the whole event didn’t do wonders for their relationship.
In the book Runs and Ruins, it does seem that Gavaskar was not fascinated by Kapil’s decision to declare the innings during the Madras Test when he was batting on 236 either.
In another incident during Gavaskar’s captaincy, irresponsible batting from Kapil fuelled an Indian defeat against David Gower’s Englishmen on home soil. Gavaskar was furious. After the selectors, headed by Chandu Borde, met with the captain to pick the side for the next match, a unanimous and sad decision was announced that both the guilty players were going to be dropped. The aftermath of the decision was murky. While Kapil accused Gavaskar for his omission, the captain defended himself by saying that he had been late for the selection committee meeting and had not said a word.
Gavaskar did not help his cause when he decided to continue the crawling Indian innings well into the fourth day of the rain affected Test in Kolkata. The crowd, chanting “No Kapil, No Test”, pelted Gavaskar with rotten vegetables and fruits.
After retirement though, the two legends have gone on record saying that the press blew their misunderstandings out of proportion. They have managed to maintain a friendly front before the public, and currently it seems the daggers are peacefully laid to rest.
#3 Imran Khan - Javed Miandad
The dynamics between these two great legends have always been complicated. Although they often combined forces to bring accolades for their country, the undercurrent of bitterness and resentment persisted in their relationship off-field.
One aspect of the tension was probably the Lahore-Karachi relationship. Imran was considererd to have been endowed with too much and Miandad with too little social status.
In his autobiography Cutting Edge Miandad wrote about Imran Khan's declaration against India when he was going great guns batting not out on 280 against India. He also accuses Imran of plotting agaist his captaincy in 1993 and 1981.
The all-rounder’s own grievances are more subjective. They hint at Miandad’s scheming mind, regular face-offs with one and all, and his political games in the dressing room. When Pakistan lost to India in the World Cup group match in 1992, with Miandad scoring 40 off 110 balls, Imran went public saying that ‘some senior batsmen’ had batted way too slowly.
However, when the two did work together, it worked miracles for the team. It was generally accepted that the two often acted as simultaneous leaders, Miandad coming up with strategies and Imran passing on the command to the rank and file.
Now the relationship seems to have settled, and the two treat each other with much respect and consideration in public.
#2 Geoffrey Boycott - Ian Botham
Two of the biggest superstars within the dressing room walls of the "star"- studded English teams of the 70s and 80s were Geoff Boycott and Ian Botham. Boycott was so aloof from the rest of the team and so self-absorbed that it led Dennis Lillee to comment: "Geoff fell in love with himself at an early age and remained faithful."
Botham on the other hand was his antithesis and alter-ego with his boisterous and binging ways.
In a Test in Christchurch where Boycott was captaning, England needed fast runs on the fourth afternoon to win the Test match. Despite the circumstances the captain was selfishly crawling to an 80-ball 26. Bob Willis the vice-captain then famously told new batsman Botham to “run the bugger out”.
Botham pushed the ball to short extra cover and called Boycott for an impossible single, in the process running him out by miles. Boycott, stunned beyond belief, kept muttering “What have you done, what have you done?” To this Botham replied, “I’ve just run you out". Botham went on to get a few quick runs before Willis blew away the Kiwi batting to win the Test for England.
#1 Don Bradman - Jack Fingleton
It is said the greatest batsman to have ever played the game had problems with gaining support of all his teammates. One problem was religion – there was a divide in the Australian team on the basis of Catholicism and Protestantism. Compounding the religious divide was the other major issue of teammates feeling that Bradman thrived on the popularity and that made the game more of a one-man show.
One of the most interesting comments about Bradman was made by O’Brien just before his death in 1997: “He had an inferiority complex, except when he had a bat in his hand.”
It is quite ironic that the man with whom Bradman had an erstwhile world record 346 run 6th-wicket partnership in an Ashes Test, is someone with whom he carried one of the most infamous and long lasting feuds ever.
During Bradman's final innings in England in 1948, where he famously got out for a duck, Jack Fingleton and another Bradman-hater Bill O'Reilly were there at the press box. While the great man walked back to tumultuous applause and heartbreak, the press box had reverberated with hysterical laughter of the two men.
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