Count me out

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Mohammad Yousuf pulled out of assignments with their national teams recently. We look at eleven other instances when players didn't put cricket first.

	Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje: No passage to India © AFP Enlarge

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi
India's tour of West Indies, 1970-71
At the end of 1969, Pataudi had been leading India for 36 Tests, the longest reign in Indian cricket till then. It had been a disastrous home season - a draw against New Zealand and a thrashing at the hands of Australia - but Pataudi was still seen as the frontrunner for the captain's post ahead of India's 1971 tour of the West Indies. So much so that the man who eventually went on to lead in that series, Ajit Wadekar, had jokingly asked Pataudi to "see that I am in the team". When Pataudi was ousted, he sent a telegram to make it seem that he was never available for the tour. Rather inconveniently for Pataudi, the telegram was found to be dated four days after the selection meeting.

Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje
South Africa's tour of India, 2004-05
Both Gibbs and Boje had denied accepting money to under-perform during the one-day series when South Africa visited India in 2000-01. In 2005, the Delhi police, still apparently unconvinced about the pair's innocence, said investigations were continuing and that they could not guarantee the two South Africans would not be questioned or arrested if they came to India. The South African board lobbied the Indian sports ministry to get immunity for the duo, but when those efforts fell through, Gibbs and Boje decided to skip the tour.

Charl Langeveldt
South Africa tour of India, 2007-08
Another South African backs out. When Langeveldt was picked in the squad for the Tests against India in 2008, it had been more than two years since he had last played in the game's longest format. He had been selected ahead of Andre Nel, who had been a regular in the national set-up for the past couple of years and had done well in the Tests against West Indies a few months earlier, taking 13 wickets at 26.23. The selection of the coloured Langeveldt ahead of Nel was seen by many to be pandering to Cricket South Africa's transformation policy and caused a huge controversy, including a heated row between board chairman Norman Arendse and national coach Mickey Arthur. The furore so upset Langeveldt that he opted out of the series, saying he wouldn't be in the right frame of mind for the matches.

Stuart MacGill
Australia's tour of Zimbabwe, 2004
In 2004 the Zimbabwe cricket board was getting increasingly politicised and most of the white players in the national team had been squeezed out. There had been plenty of calls for teams to stop touring Zimbabwe, from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to the Cricket Writers' Club. While most members of the Australian team were unsure what course of action to follow, MacGill decided to pull out, stating that he could not undertake the tour and maintain "a clear conscience". The England fast bowler Steve Harmison followed suit a few months later.

Muttiah Muralitharan
Sri Lanka tour of Australia, 2004
Controversy had dogged both of Murali's previous visits to Australia. He had been called for throwing by Darrell Hair in the Boxing Day Test in 1995, and by Ross Emerson during the 1998-99 tour. After both incidents, he was cleared by the ICC following bio-mechanical analysis. There were no signs, though, that Australian crowds wouldn't keep up their practice of chanting "no-ball" after each of his deliveries, and matters were made worse by then Australian prime minister John Howard's remark, "they proved it in Perth with that thing" (alluding to the University of Western Australia where tests were conducted on his bowling). Murali cited "personal reasons" and pulled out of the tour - a decision Dennis Lillee described as "pathetic" and "a real cop-out".

Ian Botham
England tour of Pakistan, 1987-88
Ian Botham's views on Pakistan are well known. "Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law to, for a month, all expenses paid," he said in 1984, after what turned out to be his only Test in Pakistan. It was no surprise when Botham declined to join the touring party when England was to visit Pakistan in 1987. It was probably all for the best too: with relations between the two sides at a nadir, the Mike Gatting-Shakoor Rana incident, and various other flare-ups, Botham's presence would have only added to the volatile situation. Botham, though, did visit Pakistan in 2000-01 as a Sky Sports commentator, even bringing his mother-in-law along.

	Darren Gough finds a way to stay fit when not involved with cricket © Getty Images Enlarge

Darren Gough
England tour of Pakistan, 2005-06
Another Englishman who wasn't particularly fond of Pakistan. Darren Gough turned down a place in England's one-day squad for the 2005-06 trip to Pakistan for "personal reasons". He used the time to appear on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, a television competition featuring celebrities teamed with professional dance partners. He went on to win, and the final episode of the show helped raise almost £1.5million pounds for charity. His former England team-mate Mark Ramprakash followed in Gough's footsteps, winning the show's next season.

Imran Khan
Australia tour of Pakistan, 1988-89
Months after inspiring Pakistan to a draw in an exhilarating contest against the mighty West Indies, Imran Khan decided to withdraw from the home series against Australia. The Tests kicked off in September and Imran deemed the weather too hot for cricket and particularly taxing for the fast bowlers. (Only two Tests had been played till then in the month of September in Pakistan's history.) He was also reportedly miffed that Australia were visiting in the off-season just to ensure there was no clash with the Australian home season.

Geoff Boycott
Ashes, 1974-75
When Ray Illingworth stepped down from the captaincy for the visits to India and Pakistan in 1972-73, Tony Lewis was appointed in his place. That clearly annoyed Geoff Boycott, who harboured ambitions of becoming captain, and he declared himself unavailable for "personal and domestic reasons". A month ahead of the 1974-75 Ashes trip, when Mike Denness was anointed Illingworth's successor, Boycott again opted out, stating that he needed to "have another winter free from cricket at the highest level". This time, though, his self-imposed exile was for the substantial span of 30 Tests.

Graham Gooch
Ashes, 1986-87
One more man skipping the Ashes. For leading the first major rebel tour to South Africa, in 1982, Graham Gooch was handed a three-year ban from international cricket. That meant he couldn't display his prowess on the biggest stage for some of his prime years. Still, in 1986, barely 18 months after he returned to the fold, he excused himself from the most important series for an English cricketer - the Ashes - to spend time with his young family. He would again put family before cricket in 1993, skipping the West Indies tour to be with his children.

And a last-minute compromise
Don Bradman
Ashes, 1932-33
It could have turned into an almighty anti-climax had cricket's greatest run-machine, Don Bradman, pulled out of the infamous Bodyline series. In 1931, Bradman signed a contract to write for Sydney's Sun newspaper. Shortly before the arrival of Douglas Jardine's men, Bradman sought the board's permission - assuming it would be a formality - to continue his work with the paper. The board, however, refused to give him the license to write, on the grounds that "journalism was not his sole occupation". Bradman responded by saying he would "stand out" of Tests for two years and honour his contract with the Sun. It was only on the eve of the second Test (after Bradman missed the first due to illness) when Frank Packer, the paper's proprietor, and Kerry's father, decided to release him from the contract that the deadlock was resolved, and a still-not-placated Bradman took the field.