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Quote ... unquote Quotes of 2003
"The game's leading wicket-taker [among spinners] is one of the great masters in Shane Warne, and hard on his heels is a burglar, a thief, a dacoit."
"We have been on the ropes for three games and the final knockout blow was today. You can only keep taking so many punches, but we could not withstand any more."
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Sri Lankan captain, Hashan Tillakaratne, has effected a bowling change and has brought on Sri Lanka's exuberant exponent of exaggerated offspin, Muttiah Muralitharan."
"Ashley Giles made a simple attempt at a top-edged hook by Mahela Jayawardene look like a Mr Bean Christmas special."
"I love each and every one of you but, like my like my own family, you thrill, you frustrate, you anger."
"I'm not sure how many people will play cricket once they have experienced the emotion of driving a sled down a luge track."
"Twenty years ago that attitude was the norm but I thought world cricket had changed and that teams now tried to win. I was proved wrong at Kandy."
"It's not as if they know what I am bowling, it's almost as if they don't really seem to care what I am bowling."
"We know, and they know, that we can beat them."
"India have now won three of their last four Tests against Australia ... maybe they are simply a better side."
"Throw, throw, throw the ball, gently down the seam
"Australian cricket, or 'Cricket Australia' as they prefer to be known, is doing everything possible to stamp out personality, character and individual thinking from the sport. And it's pathetic to watch. [They] are behaving like anally retentive librarians."
"Not too many of us tell tales out of school."
"As the assault gathered momentum, still more men were despatched in a vain attempt to stem the flow. Nothing changed. Sourav Ganguly and his threadbare attack died the death of a thousand cuts."
"A ****ing cheat, a ****ing chucker"
"We're all fit and well ... well, those of us who are here."
"I never believe there is any point looking at the surface ... you only get depressed."
"Does the ICC think that Harper is indispensable, or do they have double standards on the reports of the captains? Or is it that the ICC has double standards for Asian and non-Asian umpires?"
"When a man who has hardly appealed for a year suddenly exercises his vocal chords every few minutes a sore throat should not be too much of a surprise."
"As far as farewells go, this was like Dame Nellie Melba getting a frog in her throat. Then falling into the orchestra pit."
"His latest weapon, a leg-break delivered with the whiplash arm of a spitting cobra, looks a vaguely suspicious contortion ... but unless the ICC bigwigs decide to take another look at [his] unorthodox action, he is going to add substantially to his haul of 461 Test wickets in the next three weeks."
"There's a lot of talk about this Test match and a lot of talk about myself, but the important message is that cricket is bigger than any individual."
"The last series I played here [Sri Lanka] was the toughest of my life ... so for a young offspinner it's going to be even tougher. I'm just glad the lifeguards dragged him in."
"I get the impression that when they are on the field, they are thinking about the commerce, and when they are doing their commerce, they are thinking about their game."
"Somerset's rent-a-quote, Peter Anderson, enjoyed another opportunity to stick the boot in, accusing the would-be reformers of knowing nothing about the game. It is undeniable, of course, that an ex-copper from Hong Kong should know more about cricket than the combined experience of two England captains."
"Daddy, I don't want you to go away any more."
"Test Match Special is all chocolate cakes and jolly japes, but I didn't enjoy being called a wheelie-bin, and nor did my family."
"The dressing-room is sacrosanct. Nobody goes in there without the permission of the coach or captain, and the testers did not have permission."
"The whole tour has ended up being a complete farce. We didn't look at any weather forecast, we just depended on the English board knowing what they were doing. We've spent about £2500 coming out to watch England and it's really hard to take."
"This is the weakest-looking England side I can remember. I watched them struggle to beat Bangladesh in Dhaka and they are nowhere near as good as the sides I faced."
"Even though we are the home side, the pressure will be on England. I can't remember how long it is since they reached the final of a leading tournament, so there will be so much expectation on them now."
"We were in the game for about 1.2 overs"
"There are three great international team sports in Australia: cricket, rugby (two codes), and Pom-bashing. But the greatest of these is the last, and it is time we prepared ourselves for the greatest celebration of Pom-bashing since Bodyline, the 1930s cricket tour that became an international incident. That one rankles to this day and is otherwise known as the longest whinge in sporting history."
"We have enough players in our squad here who can hit the ball over the ropes. So, hopefully, at some stage there will be a role there for a nudger and nurdler like me. It's not a glamorous role, but it is there."
"When I was playing the game we never had the benefit of TV or video to analyse our techniques or look at faults, we depended on other cricketers to watch us and then tell us what they thought we were doing wrong."
"That's in the past now. We mature as time goes on and I've been captain for three years now, so you start realising things and go ahead."
"I have no grudge against the cricket fans since I know how they feel."
"Maybe some people didn't really understand what I meant."
"Whether rolling over no-hopers who would struggle to cut the mustard in Minor Counties cricket will serve as adequate preparation for stiffer tasks ahead in Sri Lanka next week, however, remains to be seen."
"We were wondering just what could be done when Brian suggested we use the instrument they use in golf to make green holes to gouge the offending area out."
"It's disappointing to see the home side doctoring pitches to suit their needs. To me, this approach not only contravenes the spirit of the game, it will also have a detrimental affect on the advancement of Bangladesh's side."
"I'm a thick-set guy. I can't get below 16 stone without making myself ill."
"The over before I got Tendulkar out, I just turned to Punter and just said I'd get him a wicket next over. It was more arse than class, I think!"
"A concentration on the fundamentals is being neglected in favour of unproved and mostly incorrect theories."
"The West Indies tour has become a rip-off. I'm not going now."
"My timing has been perfect all game. Test cricket is about playing the situation, not being an individual."
"His claim of being an allrounder is clearly more a reflection of his physique than abilities in Test cricket."
"If someone has a cute figure, they are known to have a nice Chaminda."
"The need of the hour is to replace ignorant curators with knowledgable ones. Otherwise, it could prove catastrophic for Test cricket."
"It is a brand-new opportunity, like the outrageous perk county players have always enjoyed: scoring a century against the universities in April, retiring with a bogus groin strain and hoping no-one will remember how second-rate it was when the club committee study the averages and consider new contracts in September."
"You can never say that he is out of form. He is a volcano waiting to explode and we hope he doesn't do that against us in the one-dayers."
"Realistically it's a very slim chance. But I also know that it's my mindset that'll maybe create that opportunity again. It's like Dumb and Dumber - when the girl says, `You've got a one in a million chance of sleeping with me,' and Jim Carrey says, `So you're saying I've got a chance' ... I live by that."
"When I was on 70, they kept reminding me 77 was my highest score, and when I got past that, they kept reminding me I was after my first hundred as well."
"The pace bowlers were very good but I expected the spinners to turn the ball more. As for Ashley Giles - world-class bowler that he is - I thought he might be more effective."
"Blood came out like water as soon as the gauze was removed ... This is life."
"I don't know how you Indians live here."
"Shit, I better not get out first ball after that."
"I would not trade Matthew Hayden for anybody else in world cricket. If anyone is going to break Brian Lara's world-record Test score of 375, he is the man."
"They are advocating voluntary euthanasia when what the game needs is an injection of confidence in its inherently good health."
"When he gets back, I'll have to tell him he's grown."
"C'mon Saqi!"
"I can party as good as the rest of them."
"I don't think I've actually drunk a beer for 15 years, except a few Guinnesses in Dublin, where it's the law."
"Our target remains the same: individual improvement. We kept doing it in Multan and came close to a victory against Pakistan. If we can enhance that, we could possibly end our losing streak."
"I'm a pretty emotional person. I'm basically the opposite of what I'm perceived as on the cricket field. When you drop a player as captain, you become emotional. You don't cry, but you feel like crying."
"I don't enjoy the game as much as I used to. The challenges are running out for me. I suppose going out on your first date is always more exciting than when you've been married for 20 years."
"All those queuing up for the opening slot don't have it in them. They are all crap."
"If things remain the same in Zimbabwe we would suggest that the team does not tour."
"We've been linked with everybody. We have read Alec Stewart, we have read David Byas and we have read Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all."
"We welcome them with open hearts and minds, and they should also tour with open minds, they will be looked after like state guests and that's our promise."
"Those who run cricket in this country, especially at the domestic level, are for the most part a self-serving, pusillanimous and self-important bunch of myopic dinosaurs unable to take any but the shortest-term view of everything."
"He [Graeme Smith] talks too much and doesn't deliver on all the promises he makes."
"Of course, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne would always be in it and so not able to take wickets."
"You're going to see this happen more and more - tough decisions made for purely financial reasons, not cricketing ones."
"Let's get Alec Bedser out."
"The decision destroyed my confidence, which has always been fragile. I need people to support and back me -- and I was mentally broken by being left out by England."
"We are cramming cricket in but there's nothing we can do about it."
"No. Nayan Mongia should keep the wickets."
"Darren Gough's omission was a unanimous decision, at least according to [David] Graveney, and it is probably not as dicey as taking just three front-line pace bowlers to a part of the world where E-coli can be as potent as Murali."
"I know the players are with me and they think I should have been picked - that's all that matters to me."
"I don't think they think I'm very good, to be honest. They question everything I do."
"We're trying our arses off and we'll continue to do so."
"The Oval is as ugly as sin and set amidst even uglier architecture, the latest addition to which - the Swiss Re building - resembles a giant penis."
"The bowlers bowled like men who had met a dementor on the way into the ground and knew that there was no hope left in the world."
"Ask me that again next month, when you're all in Dhaka and I'm in Rome, watching Chelsea playing Lazio!"
"I am not sure if such simulated training is going to be a help. You mean to say if we tour Australia we need to have a beer-can in our hands all the time?"
"The fact that his wicketkeeping has been poor and that in the last, disastrous Test at Headingley he batted as though caught in somebody's headlights has plainly done nothing to budge the selectors. Why not? Because it is felt Stewart deserves a gloriously sentimental farewell."
"They've got the contracts they want, they take blokes out of games and they still blame the nursery of the game."
"England's defeat at Headingley was the biggest cock-up I've ever seen in Test cricket."
"If Trescothick had tried to get me off the field when batting well, I'd have hit him with my bat."
"We didn't bowl well. The guys knew the plan, but the harder they tried, the less they seemed to land it in the right areas."
"A lot of people say that suits my game, to hang in, to play terribly and to look horrible. I was able to do that."
"If we had lost at Trent Bridge, I had visions of my head appearing on a turnip like Graham Taylor on the back pages."
"I do find myself making suggestions to him but I'm old enough and ugly enough to accept that he's the man in charge, and that's how it should be."
"He has been an endless source of amusement, especially for the Yorkshire boys. They have never heard anybody speak before like Ed. At the crease he looks a million dollars, which is probably what he has got tucked away somewhere."
"She's just a dopey, hairy-backed Sheila."
"Ed Smith disguised any nerves with such quintessentially English charm that one observer wondered whether Hugh Grant had been drafted into the squad."
"He said I had a 'nice-looking ass' and asked me for my number. I gave it to him."
"On the last tour we went to Holland after winning at Lord's and we celebrated for a while. The trip did get a bit out of hand - and it had got out of hand the last two times we have been."
"I'm trying to look like Beckham, and it's not working."
"I'm dealing with people's lives now, whereas I used to deal with egos."
"As baptisms go, this was not so much a blessing for the Lancashire-born Yorkshire player as a prolonged, agonising drowning."
"I think each time something is said you really want to dig in and make people pay, especially if it's a bowler ... it made me more and more hungry - and, hopefully, I'm not finished yet."
"A sporting hero has been born in South Africa, and the country needs somebody young, fresh, enthusiastic and committed. This is a guy who you know will climb Everest for South Africa."
"The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but he had fled. Twit."
"Every time we snicked it, it went to hand. Every shot we played seemed to go down their throats; it was just not a good day to remember, really."
"In India, we don't play in gardens like they do in New Zealand. I can't wait to get my hands on the ball and have a go at the Kiwis. They will struggle here."
"I think he has resigned in haste because England have had a poor game and the seam bowling has been pathetic. It didn't help that he scored only 1 while 'Wotsisname' got a double-hundred."
"I needed to see how deep I could dig and unfortunately, as captain, I wasn't good enough." © Cricinfo
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