Date-stamped : 05 Jan94 - 18:35
A Year of Chaos: 
Muck-ups, mistakes  and mishaps;  Sport is forever throwing up the
unexpected  but 1993  has seen more  than  its fair  share  of the
freakish, the bizarre, the moving and the downright amusing.  Paul
Newman selects  10 memorable moments that  some participants  will
no doubt want to forget. 

7. Hung prawn and slaughtered
England's cricketers have come up with some odd locations in which
to lose  Test matches  in  recent  times.  Colombo  was among this
year's  unlikely venues, but not even the capital of Sri Lanka was
a match for the setting of England's  defeat in their  second Test
in India: the Chinese restaurant of the team hotel in Madras.

The England cause  was all but lost  from the moment  Graham Gooch
and some of  his colleagues sat down for an evening meal the night
before the first day's play.  The England captain was subsequently
up half the night with diarrhoea and dizzy spells and did not even
make the starting line-up.  Mike Gatting and  Robin Smith did, but
by lunchtime both were back at the hotel with Gooch.  In the cases
of  Gooch and Gatting at least, the finger of blame was pointed at
the Chinese restaurant's prawns.

A semi-retired doctor from Pontefract, who had just arrived with a
party of  holidaymakers, tended to the sick, but  could do nothing
about their healthy colleagues, who by the close of play had India
reeling at 275 for 2.

By the following  day, the tour manager  Bob Bennett had set up an
alternative  soup kitchen  in the  England  dressing-room, serving
tinned food only. India struggled again and were forced to declare
at 560 for 6. England replied with  scores of 286 and 252  to lose
the match by an innings and 22 runs.

(Thanks: The Independent, December 22, 1993)
<END> Contributed by Vicky (VIGNESWA@*umass.edu)