In what has been described by Australian media outlets as a ‘distasteful display’, some of England’s key players in their recent 3-0 Ashes series victory celebrated their triumph by urinating on the pitch at the KIA Oval in London.
According to Australia’s Foxsports and other sources the England players drank heavily at the ground, celebrating their third straight series win over their oldest foe before coming back onto the field of play late that night. With the floodlights still on and ground staff clearing up the stands and outfield English stars Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad and Kevin Pietersen each took it in turns to cut a slash on the pitch.
Each time one of the players completed his stream he was met by cheers from his fellow squad members, including captain Alistair Cook.
Naturally the Aussie media has made much more of this incident than their English counterparts and, while some of the furore can be put down to sour grapes, it still seems like a fairly unsavoury thing to do. It is the home of the Surrey County Cricket Club after all, whose club season is still very much going.
Foxsports also managed to have a wry dig at the preparation of the Test wicket itself, saying: ‘It would have been the only moisture applied to the pitch for quite some time given the deliberate dry and dusty nature of the pitches presented in this Test series to blunt Australia’s pace attack and aid spinner Graeme Swan.’
Definitely some sour grapes there.
English media outlets have pointed to the infamous incident during a Test series in Australia two years ago, when photographs of WACA ground staff having a party on the Test pitch days before a match was scheduled to be played there. The subsequent YouTube video of the incident called, ‘Booze Party on Perth Pitch’ garnered well over 600,000 views and left WACA chief executive Graeme Wood with a fair bit of explaining to do.
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