• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Best quotes of the year 2005

PAKMAN

State 12th Man
some of these r quite funny
Passion has been matched by palaver in 2005, both in the middle and on the margins. Cricinfo looks back at some of the year's best quotes: the hilarious, the more serious and the downright stupid.



Kevin Pietersen's mother: `When he asked me what I thought about his hairstyle I said, no matter what happened, a mother would always love her child.' © Getty Images




The motor-mouth

"I think I was saying 3-0 or 4-0 about 12 months ago, thinking there might be a bit of rain around. But with the weather as it is at the moment, I have to say 5-0."
Glenn McGrath was ****sure that the Ashes would mean just another England thrashing.

"It's down to 3-1 at the moment!"
McGrath revises his scoreline after England edge home in the Edgbaston thriller.

"When I came off, I actually asked the boys what it's like to get out in this series. I have been into Ricky [Ponting] again today to say I need to be moved up the order."
At last McGrath, the world's most renowned No.11, sees a silver lining in the gathering gloom - his own batting prowess.

Whinge of the year and its close second

"I think it is an absolute disgrace the spirit of the game is being treated like that. [Duncan] Fletcher has known right the way through the summer this is something we haven't been happy with, but it's continued. He knows it's something that has got under our skins and I've had enough of it, and I let him know that, and most of his players too. Being here in England they've obviously got the resources to just draft in the best fieldsmen that they possibly can at the time. The way they've been doing it is just before their bowlers are about to bowl they'll send them off for a short amount of time to have a bit of a loosen-up and a massage and that sort of stuff, and come back on and bowl. As soon as they've finished their spell they'll do exactly the same thing. It's within the rules of the game but it's just not within the spirit of the game, which is what we're all trying to uphold."
Ricky Ponting vents his frustration after Gary Pratt, a substitute fielder, ran him out during the Ashes.

Legends in their own lifetime will soon have to become legends in their own lunchtime.

Martin Johnson writes in The Telegraph on the instant-gratification generation and the attraction of Twenty20 cricket



"You want to take a run to a cover fielder and get run out, whose fault is that? You know what's more? All the palaver caused me to burn my toast."
Duncan Fletcher can't be bothered to take Ponting's rant seriously.


"It's been a tough tour mentally .... We've been stuck in hotels and mentally it's got to the team a little bit."
Fletcher conjures up cabin-fever as the reason for England's drubbing in Pakistan: a performance-affecting affliction caused by staying in luxury hotels with nothing to do.

Secrets behind the successes ... and the odd failure

"A bloke's bowling at 150kmh trying to rip the fingers off your arms or probably even worse. It gets your blood going and the adrenalin pumping. You are in a fight. And to me that's what Test cricket is all about."
Justin Langer on why Shoaib Akhtar gets him going.



Brett Lee: `Apples being thrown at your head is something we don't want to happen in cricket.' Well, try saying that to Brendon McCullum, Brett! © Getty Images



"At tea-time he [Makhaya Ntini] seemed dull and out of it so I put him in an ice bath and it really made him mad ... he abused me and I said to the other bowlers they had to perform after tea or they would also need to cool off."
Ray Jennings shares a secret. Perhaps other coaches are listening.

"I only had papayas, nothing else."
Mahendra Singh Dhoni reveals his morning diet, after bashing 148 off just 123 balls against Pakistan in the one-day international at Visakhapatnam.

"I've shifted to milkshakes, but I ensure that I get my daily quota."
And that includes, though Dhoni wouldn't confirm, a litre of buffalo milk! Oops.

"Somebody told him to have spinach all the time, so he loves spinach and wherever he goes, he says spinach should be part of the diet, in Pakistan particularly. His team-mates tease him and call him Popeye the sailor man."
Zakir Khan, the PCB operations manager, on Abdul Razzaq's odd diet, which doctors believe led to his collapse during the Melbourne Test.

"I think I must be allergic to my passport."
Steve Harmison explains his homesickness after a woeful tour of South Africa.


Best left unsaid

"Quidditch is a wildly exciting, cricket-type game that is an obsession with many in the wizarding world, including Harry and Ron."
A journalist with the Toledo Blade, an American newspaper, gets her sports mixed up while explaining Harry Potter to American readers.


At one stage I had to sit in with a lawyer and prove I could understand English. Seriously, mate. He sat there and said, 'I'm a bit embarrassed about this, but I need to know you understand English and can speak it properly.' I said, 'You are joking.' So he asked me where I was born and I said 'Brisbane'. He seemed happy that I understood the question.

Stuart Law explains the rigours of becoming an English citizen.



"I definitely believe if any of our batsmen get out to Giles in the Tests they should go and hang themselves. But I'm confident that won't happen."
Thankfully, the Australians didn't listen to Terry Alderman, the former Australian swing bowler, or it would been a busy season at the coroner's.

"He said I looked like Tarzan, and wondered how I could bowl fast looking like that."
Shoaib Akhtar reveals how Andrew Flintoff unwittingly caused a transformation with a stray comment during the Super Series. Shoaib went on to wreck England on their tour of Pakistan in December.

"It's a catch-21 situation."
Kevin Pietersen proves why he is such an adept at dropping much besides the red cherry.

"My dad is 70, my mother is 60. The chances of another Kapil are close to zero."
Will India see another Kapil Dev? The man himself doesn't think so.

"Morning Geraint, how are you?"
A Sky News reporter demonstrates the depth of his new-found love of cricket, as he greets Paul Collingwood on the morning of the third day at The Oval



Ian Chappell: `Sehwag can change the course of a match with the ease of Moses parting the Red Sea.' © Getty Images




"How can you tell your wife you are just popping out to play a match and then not come back for five days?"
Rafael Benitez, manager of Liverpool FC, just doesn't get it.

"Freddie is a big unit and likes to get very animated when he is appealing, which puts extra duress on the crotch area of his trousers."
Andrew Flintoff's trouser manufacturer explains why the great man has a thing for seam.

No love lost

"[Greg] Chappell and [Sourav] Ganguly make Raymond Illingworth and myself seem like lovers in comparison."
Michael Atherton puts the Ganguly-Chappell affair in perspective.


"He is invariably at a loss for words when he talks about cricket because he just doesn't know a thing about the game. No wonder, he pronounces it as `kirkit' or `krikate' and fortunately he doesn't have to spell it."
Raj Singh Dungarpur tells us why he thinks Jagmohan Dalmiya isn't India's right man for the job

Daryl Harper - hopeless ... Billy Bowden - a showpony ... Steve Bucknor - past his sell-by date.

Bob Willis doesn't think much of the elite panel of umpires.


"This is not a joke, so just shut up."
John Wright cracks the whip as Shoaib Akhtar interrupts him during a team meeting during the Super Series.

"If they had scored as many runs as they had women's phone numbers during the tour, West Indies would have won the series comfortably."
In a memo to his company chairman, Richard Nowell, the representative of West Indies' sponsors, Digicel, slams the team's attitude during their tour of Australia.


"Little was more ridiculous than the shouts of 'easy, easy' from the self-styled Barmy Army towards the end. They had chanted themselves hoarse for much of the last two hours. Why the countries they invade are too polite to tell them the truth, heaven knows. Worthy souls dwell among them, no doubt. As a group, they too often demean English cricket. As Betjeman prayed of Slough: come friendly bombs and fall on them. Water bombs will do."
Christopher Martin-Jenkins loses patience with the Barmy Army in The Times after the South African series.



`That means I can drive a flock of sheep through the town centre, drink for free in no less than 64 pubs, and get a lift home with a policeman when I become inebriated. What more could you want?' The mayor may just regret giving Andrew Flintoff the freedom of Preston. © Getty Images




"Cricket is a foreign game played in white flannels ... it is not our game, wrestling is. In fact, cricket should not be played at all. What baffles me is why Indians are so bothered about watching cricket."
Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state, begs to differ with millions of his countrymen.


Sledging


"It beats Monday morning at Chelmsford - all tea and Pimm's. The amount of times Steve Waugh said to me: 'Enjoy it Nasser, this is your last Test. We will never see you again.'"
Nasser Hussain on what proper sledging is really like - Aussie style.

"I'll walk you to the changing room. What are you averaging? You must know your average? 9? 10? Maybe 9.5, so we'll give you 10."
Mark Boucher prepares for the tour of Australia by perfecting the art on Tatenda Taibu.

If I was on 99 and at the other end and you got out, I'd hit you with my bat.

Geoffrey Boycott gets candid with Matthew Hoggard.



"He must enjoy playing cricket ... by the end of most games he can't have any match fee left. There's aggression and aggression, but when it happens every ball it just gets boring."
Ian Botham tires of Andre Nel's on-field antics.

"Can't bat, can't bowl, can't field. Famously, they said that about the last England side to win the Ashes. Now they are saying it about me."
Ashley Giles turns it on himself after a dismal showing at Lords.


ICC and its priorities

"We are confident that our twin objectives of meeting event revenue targets and achieving maximum global audience reach will be met."
Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, talking about the Super Series ...never mind runs and wickets, it's dollars that seem to be the driving force.

"A player hesitates over a decision on TV and gets fined, or has a bat logo too large and gets the same treatment. A whole nation's cricket fraternity is about to collapse, and because of some weird rule in the constitution, it cannot get involved."
Henry Olonga on the (in)action of the ICC over Zimbabwe's internal battle.

Every demagogue in town has vented his spleen. Every Tom, **** and Soumitra has voiced an opinion

Peter Roebuck on the hysterical reaction following Sourav Ganguly's exclusion from the Test side.



"They do nothing about blokes chucking, they do nothing about all this other stuff, they are more worried about words, that is all they are, full of words the ICC. They always look like they are doing something but they do nothing. They are the biggest ********ters in the world. What a waste of space."
Jeff Thomson, former Aussie paceman, takes a bazooka at cricket's bosses.

"Anyone who believes President Robert Mugabe will lose sleep over New Zealand not coming to Zimbabwe might as well believe he is not his son's mother or her mother's daughter."
An editorial in the Zimbabwe Independent does a reality check.
 

andyc

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
My definete favourite is Boucher's one to Taibu

"I'll walk you to the changing room. What are you averaging? You must know your average? 9? 10? Maybe 9.5, so we'll give you 10."
Mark Boucher prepares for the tour of Australia by perfecting the art on Tatenda Taibu.
 

Neil Pickup

Cricket Web Moderator
andyc said:
My definete favourite is Boucher's one to Taibu

"I'll walk you to the changing room. What are you averaging? You must know your average? 9? 10? Maybe 9.5, so we'll give you 10."
Mark Boucher prepares for the tour of Australia by perfecting the art on Tatenda Taibu.
I watched that live. It was painful and funny in eqaul measures.
 

andyc

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Neil Pickup said:
I watched that live. It was painful and funny in eqaul measures.
I just realised Boucher's average is only 1 run higher than Taibu's, and Taibu has a higher top score than him.
 

Barney Rubble

International Coach
Personally I think Freddie Flintoff on The Frank Skinner Show is a contender:

FS: We all know you're a big drinker Fred. I'm usually pretty gone after about eight pints - how much does it take to get you, you know......*makes drinking motion with hand*

Freddie: (thinks for a second or two, pausing)........About a week.

:laugh:
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
I personally loved KP asking Ashley Giles "Who's she, then?" after chatting to Cherie Blair for about five minutes @ Downing Street. :D

Warney's "That's a leg-break, Darryl" to Kemp in the first test was pretty funny too.
 

Barney Rubble

International Coach
BoyBrumby said:
I personally loved KP asking Ashley Giles "Who's she, then?" after chatting to Cherie Blair for about five minutes @ Downing Street. :D
Let's not forget Hoggy calling Tony Blair "a knob" to his face. That was priceless. :D
 

Buddhmaster

International Captain
"It was a mixture of bad bowling, good shots and ****."
Jason Gillespie eloquently sums up his Ashes series
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Where is the Chappell frank talk to Ganguly when asked by Ganguly who should be in the team which caused Ganguly to cry on tv and lead to the subsequent uproar!
 

Top