Cricketers Involved In Off-Field Controversies Due To Drinking

Cricketers are role models and should abide a much responsible behaviour. Youngsters look at cricketers and not only learn from their cricketing prowess but also from the way they behave on the field and off it. However, in the recent past we have seen some cricketers being involved in off-field controversies.

In this section, let us have a look at cricketers who sparked controversies due to drinking.

Monty Panesar

Monty Panesar is long out of favour from the England team but yet to announce his retirement. In 2013, he was fined by police after being caught urinating on nightclub bouncers in Brighton. Panesar was charged for being drunk and disorderly outside the Shooshh club.

“Sussex County Cricket Club can confirm that an incident took place involving Monty Panesar in the early hours of Monday August 5,” his county club said in a statement following his misconduct.

“The matter is under full investigation and the club will make no further comment at this stage.”

Panesar, however, apologised for the misbehaviour after the incident.

Andrew Flintoff

Andrew Flintoff was involved in the infamous pedalo incident in the Caribbean where he attempted to get out and find a boat where he thought Ian Botham was sitting. He drank for eight-hours straight before the incident broke out out and after it was helped on by his teammates to the hotel at St Lucia.

Talking about the incident Flintoff said, “We’d played New Zealand on the Friday, the first game of the World Cup, and things hadn’t being going well. We’d just come off the back of the Ashes (whitewash defeat under his captaincy in 2006-07), and I was so desperate to do well in this World Cup.

“I went out, I got a duck, out first ball actually … then I didn’t get a wicket, and then we got beat. I went back to the hotel room … I thought: ‘I’m not going out’ … but I was in my room, I was smashing the room up, I was gutted and then I thought: ‘I’m going to go out for a bit.’”

“About 1.30am I thought: ‘I’m hammered here, go home.’ I had to walk partially across the beach. For some reason I had this idea these boats out to sea – it sounds bizarre – but I knew Ian Botham was on one and I thought: ‘I’m going to have a nightcap with Beefy.’

“I thought: ‘I can’t swim … that would be dangerous,’ so I was going to get a kayak.”

Incidentally, Botham was present at the tour as a pundit.

James Faulkner

James Faulkner had hit the rock bottom of his career when he was caught drunk driving in Manchester by the local police. It was widely reported that Faulkner was found times over the legal blood alcohol limit in the UK, returning a reading of 100 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit in the UK is 35mg.

Following the incident, he was suspended by his board for four matches and was not considered for Australia’s limited-overs tour of the UK which followed the Ashes series, according to a Cricket Australia report.

He was also fined £10,000 and banned for driving in the UK for two years.

Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting had a fantastic career as a captain and a player. But one of the setbacks is his career came when he returned with a black eye. It was reported by espncricinfo that in 1999, Ponting went to the Bourbon & Beefsteak nightclub in Kings Cross, a few kilometres from the ground and got heavily drunk. He was also involved in a fight later on which gave him the black eye.