ashes 2015

[khazalid]

who's watching?

[khazalid]

you chumps only think you don't like cricket. observe:

“In my day 58 beers between London and Sydney would have virtually classified you as a teetotaller.”
Ian Chappell on David Boon’s drinking, 1989

There was an abnormal amount of travel sickness on the Qantas flight to London, and approximately 99.94% of it was self-inflicted. As it descended towards Heathrow airport, the plane’s captain addressed his passengers in the usual style. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to London where it is six degrees outside,” he said. “I want to wish the Australian team all the best. I know they’ll do very well because David Boon has just broken the record, 52 cans from Sydney to London.”

Boon has always denied the story – “If people haven’t got something else to talk about they have led a fucking boring life,” he said in 2006 – but there are enough witnesses, one or two of them sober, to suggest that it happened. The teetotal Geoff Lawson, who kept score on the back of some sick bags, wished he had kept what would have been the ultimate in alternative Ashes memorabilia. Some were not worth keeping. “The very instant we pulled up at our allotted gate,” recalled Steve Waugh, “Tim Zoehrer lurched forward and filled up the sick bag to christen our tour.”

Boon was aiming to beat the record of 45 cans, established by Rodney Marsh on the way to the World Cup in 1983. He didn’t just take the record; he obliterated it. And he obliterated himself. The middle-order batsman Dean Jones acted as pace-setter for much of the 24-hour flight. His father had told him to spend the journey picking the brain of somebody who had already played in England. The only thing Jones soaked up were about 25 cans on the way to the first stop-off in Singapore. At that point he was helped into an impromptu bed, “pissed as a fart”. With Jones out of action, a number of other players took turns to sit alongside Boon and sink a few to help him on his way. It was a very early example of squad rotation.

When Australia landed, Merv Hughes gave a radio interview back home and jauntily informed everyone of what had occurred. “The big news is that Boonie’s cracked the first 50 of the tour!” This did not please the coach, Bob Simpson, who had hoped that what happened on the plane would stay on the plane. “I got in more trouble than the protagonist,” Hughes said. “I was shitting myself that I’d be sent home.”

Boon, who became known as the “Keg on Legs”, was fined $5,000 – a lot for an international cricketer in 1989 – and put on probation. Simpson was not the only Australian who was unimpressed. Ian Chappell had been informed that Boon had drunk 58 cans, rather than 52, yet even that was not enough. “What is the world going to think? That Australia has become a namby-pamby nation which doesn’t know how to drink? For God’s sake, in my day fifty-eight beers between Sydney and London would virtually have classified you as a teetotaller.”

Throughout the 1989 tour of England, Australia were emphatic proof that there are no team-bonding agents as powerful as alcohol and victory. A number of the players get almost misty-eyed when they talk about 1989. Ian Healey said: “The spirit in the team was as good as anything I’ve ever been involved in.”

[Serbia]

WHAT IS ANY OF THIS ABOUT??
I gather it's a drinking competition on a plane that somehow is live streamed?

Bollocks.

[khazalid]

cricket, dopey. why does nobody like cricket? :'(

[Serbia]

I feel like a drinking competition on a plane would be more interesting though.

cricket, dopey. why does nobody like cricket? :'(

Because it seems very complex and hard to understand. And here in the States, we watch baseball instead, which I understand is more like your rounders.

Bollocks.

[mrswdk]

Because it takes 5 days to finish one game.

[khazalid]

says the person playing risk on cc. (?)