Bob Willis recalls The ‘Most Humorous Moments’ in his Career.
1: Piggies in the Middle
The funniest incident I have seen on a cricket field was at Brisbane during a one-day international match when a pig bearing the names of Eddie Hemmings and Ian Botham on its back was released to the outfield. The prank was played by two medical students who anesthetized the piglet, put in their ice box, and bore it into the ground. They had stuck an apple in its mouth so what when the contents of their “eskie” were inspected at the turnstiles? It would look as though they were going to have it for lunch. As the morning wore on the anesthetic wore off and they let it go to poke fun at our two heavyweights.
2: Wot No Bat?
I had plenty of fun poked at me at Edgebaston in I982 when I went out to continue my innings after the tea interval against Pakistan without my bat. It was a strange thing to happen, really, because a bat was the only piece of batting equipment I had. I used to borrow the rest of the gear from the other players, usually Ian Botham if he was out. On that occasion, he said that I could borrow his batting gloves as long as I wore the inner gloves as well. I had so much else on my mind (I was captain at the time) tint the message must have gone to my brain that once I had put on the inner gloves I was ready to go. I just tucked the batting gloves under my arm thinking that they were my bat and strode off to the middle. It was only when I got there and prepared to face Imran Khan that I realized I didn’t have it with me.
3: X Marks the Spot
Mike Gatting must have struggled to see the funny sick of it when he got back to England to have his nose rebuilt after Malcolm Marshall had smashed it in Jamaica in 1986, but it gave the rest of us a smile. On arrival at the airport, a reporter asked him: ‘Where exactly did it hit you, Mike?’ Apart from the fact that he looked like Chi-Chi with his two black eyes, there were two huge pieces of sticking plaster crisscrossing the spot where his nose had been.
