Dean Jones reveals Oz dressing room yarns far worse than Ponting’s

NEW DELHI - Former Australian cricketer and now television commentator Dean Jones has expressed surprise over information coming out of the dressing room that Ricky Ponting had allegedly broken a TV due to a “box infringement”, when it is a given that the cricketer’s dressing room is sacrosanct.

“Even as a retired former player, I have to ask the captain or team manager of Australia or Victoria if I can come into the rooms. There are no cameras allowed. Nothing. Behind those doors, you are a guest, and whatever happens or is said in those rooms stays in those rooms,” Jones writes in article for The Age.

He says that surely the Australian team management could have come up with a better excuse than a flying box broke the TV?

“There have been worse incidents, let me tell you. Shane Warne was once totally upset with himself after a soft dismissal and threw his bat, which ricocheted off a table and hit Bob Simpson in the shins. To watch Simmo curl over in pain, while muttering ugly words at Warnie, still brings tears to my eyes. The whole team flew out of the rooms like rats off a ship, and was in hysterics with laughter,” says Jones.

He adds: “Then there was the time Michael Slater was so upset with his batting that he shoved every piece of his batting equipment into the toilet in the Adelaide change room and flushed it. After having no great success flushing gloves and a pair of pads, he then tried to shove them down with his bat. Michael Bevan was so upset with getting out on one occasion, he walked straight to the showers, pulled up a chair, turned the shower on and sat there in full batting gear. That might have been funny enough, but he stayed there for at least half an hour. The team had to call his fiancee to get him out of the shower and change his mood. Thus the term “Bev attack”.

He remembers a time when Merv Hughes loved picking on him (Jones).

“He would watch me bat, notice if I got hit by opposition fast bowlers and would wait until I had a shower to discuss my bruises. Then, when I wasn’t looking, he would stick his finger into my bruises, sending me into all sorts of pain. He wasn’t known as “Fruit fly” - Australia’s biggest pest - for nothing,” Jones said.

“There was also a time in England when Rod Marsh, unhappy with a dismissal, slammed the dressing room door two or three times to make sure it was shut. After a moment of silence, Ian Chappell mentioned to Marsh that maybe that door wasn’t shut properly. Marsh then slammed the door once more, causing the windows surrounding the door to fall in and smash all over the dressing room. Marsh had to pay for the repairs,” he adds.

He concludes by saying that dressing room antics can be great for team’s morale or they can harm it.

Australia doesn’t want its captain to carry on with poor behaviour in the dressing room. (ANI)