An excerpt from an article on the Graun:
The Wanderers Test featured some mild chaos when Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes lost his cool in the Bull Ring’s famous players’ tunnel, responding to the taunts of the local crowd by lunging at the offenders with his bat. Earlier in the Test, Border had clashed with Proteas paceman Brian McMillan, who ‘calmed’ the situation by jokingly arriving next to Border at the lunch table with a pistol in hand. Hughes was later fined 10% of his match fee for a separate verbal attack on South African batsman Peter Kirsten.
And so Michael Clarke is fined for advising Jimmy Anderson that he might get a broken arm if he carries on time-wasting!
This was only 1994 – not that long ago. Mind you, SA and Jo’burg in particular were like the wild west then (even more so than now). I went on a U19 tour in 1995-96 and two of my teammates ended up having a gun pulled on them by a houseowner as a result of a prank gone wrong.
I can’t imagine quite what today’s 24 hour rolling sports news would make of a player ‘jokingly’ rocking up to lunch toting a pistol.
