Channelling their inner Broady

There are few players on Earth as committed to making malevolence funny as Stuart Broad. His infamous not walking at Trent Bridge during the 2013 Ashes was a masterclass of chutzpah, in which he refused to budge from his crease after getting caught off a thick edge, wearing a facial expression that made him look guiltier than a lion flossing its teeth while sitting next to a pile of zebra bones. In the same match, he became the first person in human history to be hypnotised by his own shoelaces when he turned the simple act of doing up his boots into an odyssey even Homer may well have given up on as he wasted time trying to prevent his side having to bowl an extra over before lunch at a rampaging Brad Haddin.

In his latest installment of caddish daredevilry, Broad this week missed a sponsor's event ahead of the first Test against New Zealand, with media reports suggesting he had been out drinking the night before with Freddie Flintoff and Matt Prior, only returning to his hotel at 7am. Understandably, many people channelled their inner Poirot and put two and two together to conclude the alleged boozing may have had something to do with the absence. Those expecting a simple mea culpa from our hero, however, rather underestimated his capacity for obfuscation. In a majestic piece of self-diagnosis, Broad admitted he'd been out and apologised for his no-show, but revealed he was incapacitated not by alcohol but by "a migraine".

It was an excuse as shameless and unlikely as ''The money was just resting in my account" or "The dog ate my pen and both my hands when I attempted to write my homework." So here - in honour of England's king of contrivance - are a few other cricketing excuses that have seen eyebrows raised to near post-Botox levels.

One night in Joburg
During Pakistan's 1998 tour of South Africa, spinner Saqlain Mushtaq and right-arm quick Mohammad Akram attributed various injuries, including black eyes and chipped teeth, to being mugged outside their Johannesburg hotel. It seemed at first glance an unpleasant ordeal, but initial sympathy for their predicament subsequently turned to scepticism in the local press as stories emerged suggesting that the pair had not, in fact, been mugged, but had instead become involved in a brawl with bouncers at a local establishment delicately named Club 69. The players were said to be deeply upset by the allegations, but reportedly refused to give sworn statements to the police, leaving the public to speculate on exactly what the naked truth of the situation may have been.

The hills have ICC
James Anderson is known as a man of few words off the field, but on it often comes across as if he's spent years attending a finishing school run by Merv Hughes. Snarling and grimacing like a bear with piles at opposition batsman and - if you believe Kevin Pietersen - his own team's fielders, Anderson has never seemed one to be particularly concerned about what the powers that be may make of his feisty antics. Ahead of England's recent tour of the West Indies, however, he opined that his form had suffered as a result of the ICC watching him like a particularly fastidious hawk ever since he was involved in a bit of pushy handbags with Ravindra Jadeja during the Nottingham Test of 2014. "I've definitely been different since that incident," Anderson said, complaining that "in the World Cup, there was a constant sense that the ICC were watching." That Anderson moved up to a career high No. 2 in the Test rankings during that Caribbean series, in addition to, at times, bowling as if the ball were a banana on a string, while still pelting batsmen with barbs and growls, suggested he wasn't quite as cowed or diminished as had been claimed.

The perils of stardom
In 2000, three Pakistan players, Shahid Afridi, batsman Hasan Raza and wicketkeeper Atiq-uz- Zaman were fined and suspended after a group of young females were discovered in their Karachi hotel room. The trio claimed that their companions were merely "collecting autographs", but the PCB refused to accept this as an excuse, docking the players Rs 50,000 each and barring them from playing in the ICC Knockout, which was shortly to be held in Kenya. On the plus side for Afridi, being banned at least allowed him the chance to indulge in one of his favourite pastimes: making a comeback.

Cat on an offspin roof
As the saying goes, greater love hath no man than to lay down his white wine and go and rescue a family pet trapped in the attic. So Graeme Swann would have had us believe back in 2010, when he was arrested for drink-driving after his 31st birthday celebrations were interrupted by a distraught call from his wife asking that he return home to save the couple's cat, Max. Mad as it perhaps seems, the animal was stuck underneath the floorboards of the loft, and Swann, perhaps not thinking entirely clearly, hopped in his Porsche Cayenne and raced to prevent a feline fatality. At the time the tweaker was described rather euphemistically as "extremely tired" by a spokesman for the local constabulary, possibly in much the same way Broad was "extremely migrained" earlier this week, but Swann's explanation ultimately won the day. He was cleared of the charge the following year.