It wasn't me - Mistaken identity? Cricket abounds with instances

[Sachinism]

"Hello Duncan" When the interviews were taking place for the new England coach in 1999, those in the running included Dav Whatmore, the former Australian Test batsman who had coached Sri Lanka to the World Cup title in 1996. As Whatmore prepared for his interview, a senior ECB executive spotted him and greeted him with a cheery "Hello Duncan!" Much to his lack of surprise, Whatmore didn't get the job. Duncan - Fletcher - did. Nigel Bennett When county cricket resumed after the Second World War, many counties were in need of new captains. One such was Surrey, who decided to offer the job to Major Leo Bennett, a well-known local club cricketer, for 1946. As luck would have it, though, shortly after that decision was made Major Nigel Bennett popped in to the office, to renew his subscription after the war. Someone apparently put two and two together and made five, and Nigel Bennett was offered the job. He might have been surprised, but he accepted. He averaged 16 and rarely bowled, and disappeared without trace after that one season. The West Indian team bus After West Indies bowled Bangladesh out for 58 in the recent World Cup, they were all smiles boarding the team bus - until some disappointed locals started throwing stones at the team bus as it left the stadium in Dhaka. The players were alarmed - Chris Gayle commented live on the attack on Twitter - and weren't exactly placated when a police official suggested that the miscreants had mixed up the buses and had meant to stone the Bangladesh one instead. Which one's Hutton? Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine, two of the stars of West Indies' famous 1950 tour of England, had both played just two matches before boarding the ship, and - in the days before blanket TV coverage - were understandably vague about some of the opposition players. As the left-arm spinner Valentine cut a swathe through the England batting in the first Test at Old Trafford - he took the first eight wickets to fall, an unprecedented feat on debut - he apparently asked his team-mates during one après-wicket huddle, "When does the famous Len Hutton come in?" Valentine was informed that he'd already dismissed him. Twin troubles Somerset fans had their work cut out when Dudley Rippon joined his identical twin Sydney in the county side in the years either side of the First World War. They often went in first together, and in 1914 did so against Northamptonshire, whose own openers - John and William Denton - were also twins. Just to make it even more difficult for spectators (and scoreboard operators), for one match in 1919 Sydney Rippon was refused permission to take time off work to represent Somerset, but called in sick and played anyway, appearing on the scorecard as "S Trimnell". Toshack tosh One of the more boring aspects of travelling to England on a luxury liner with an Australian touring team was the management's insistence that the players sign hundreds of autograph sheets for distribution around the county grounds. As the 1948 Invincibles steamed towards England, the left-arm bowler Ernie Toshack thought he'd found a way around this chore, by paying a young fellow passenger to sign his name on the dotted line. But the interloper spelt the surname wrong - "Toshak" - and the whole lot had to be redone, infuriating the other players who'd already signed. The loyal Langer When Bob Simpson, Australia's coach, underwent an operation during the tour of West Indies early in 1995, opener Michael Slater apparently thought he'd get in the coach's good books by visiting him in hospital and wishing him well. But Simpson, still heavily sedated, mistook Slater for his team-mate Justin Langer, although he did thank him profusely for taking the trouble to come. So Slater persuaded Langer to visit, assuming that this time he would get the credit - only for Simmo, now feeling better, to tell Langer that two hospital visits was really something and way beyond the call of duty. RL Hunte Errol Hunte played three Tests for West Indies - but for years he was credited, in Wisden and elsewhere, with just two caps. What happened was that someone typing a scorecard misheard "Errol" as "R.L." Hunte, and gave the non-existent RL a Test career that never happened. The mistake lasted almost 40 years until being rectified in 1967, shortly before Errol died. Ashes, what Ashes? Massachusetts babysitter Ashley Kerekes was bemused late last year when her Twitter account began being besieged by messages from cricket followers. The trouble was her Twitter handle was @theashes - and no amount of protestations from Kerekes that "I'm not a freaking cricket match!" could stem the tide. But she became something of a media sensation - and was rewarded with a trip to Australia to see what all the fuss was about. The story of Rupert Keith Fletcher, England's former captain and coach, was notoriously forgetful when it came to names. Once, when introducing an England representative XI to some local dignitaries, he reached the Somerset captain Peter Roebuck - who never did win an England cap - and couldn't quite remember who he was. Eventually Fletcher mumbled "This is Rupert Roebuck"... and Rupert became Roebuck's nickname for the remainder of his playing days. Peter Who? No one has ever actually admitted that Australia's selection of Peter Taylor for the final Test of the 1986-87 Ashes series was a mistake. But the case for the prosecution is that an opener was dropped, and the obvious replacement was the New South Wales opening batsman Mark Taylor, yet to embark on what became a very successful Test career. A television crew was dispatched to interview the happy Mark - only to discover that the man who had actually been chosen was a different Taylor - Peter: a lower-order batsman and offspinner, also from New South Wales, although he had played only one previous match for them that season. Australia went into the Test looking a batsman light - but nonetheless won, with the man now known as "Peter Who?" taking seven wickets and scoring some valuable runs, in accordance with all the best fairytales. http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/514166.html

[Roshanrocks]

What happened to Major Leo Bennett i wonder... Ashley Kerekes was seriously unlcuky and the story of Peter taylor was the best :nice:

[Prakat]

"I'm not a freaking cricket match!" :hysterical: