There are always occasions causing high amusement during the Cricket season and these moments of hilarity seem to occur more regularly in Argentina. The madness of Bernie Irigoyen has been the instigator of many events, here are two of my favourites.
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| Experienced International - Bernie Irigoyen |
In the first incident, Irigoyen managed to contribute minus five runs in the game. He arrived late to the ground due to traffic jams and eagerly ran onto the pitch and started to field at square leg. The umpire immediately turned to the scorers and took five runs off the fielding sides score. Bernie who had no idea of the rule of waiting until the end of the over before entering the field was able to spend the whole 45 overs fielding, thinking long and hard about his actions before going into bat.
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| Madman - Irigoyen |
Bernie, a hard hitting opening batsman with an unorthodox technique, bounded to the crease. Batting number two with his opening partner he wanting to reclaim the runs which he had lost earlier. When the opening bowler bowled his first delivery Bernie was backing up at the non-strikers end keen to get out of the red. The number one batter hit a perfect straight drive which the bowler deflected with his left boot onto the non striker’s stumps. The result; Bernie was run out by a meter without facing a ball. For the rest of the season Bernie became known as “minus five.”
During the last game of the season the madness of Irigoyen reappeared, this time at the expense of one of his team mates, Lautaro Musilini. Lautaro, a highly effective leg spinning all-rounder aged fourteen came to Bernie for a bit of advice about calling and running between the wickets. Bernie, the experienced Argentine International, talked Argentina’s great leg spinning hope through the art of calling and issues of turning blind. They then approached running techniques, hill reps, ply metrics and overlooked the fact that humans generally get quicker as they go through their teens.
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| Argentina U19 - Lautaro Musiani |
Irigoyen’s words of wisdom then moved on to equipment. Bernie, thinking outside the box, suggested that Lautro would be quicker between the stumps with Wicket Keeping pads on. Problem solved the pair thought. Unfortunately when inexperienced Lautro went out to bat against St Georges all eleven St George’s fielders, the Umpires and Lautaro’s batting partner were in fits of laughter which could not be confidence boosting to the new batting innovation.
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| Conway 'The King' Young |
Things got worse when Belize opening bowler Conway Young, charged down the hill with the wind and hit Lautro just above the left knee playing a forward defence. Lautro went down but refused to give up the theory and didn’t change to batting pads. He eventually made a battling 25 off 91 balls with not a quick single to show for all his bruises. What will the madness of Irigoyen bring to the cricket pitch next time?
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