It is known over that sport stars often indulge in various infamous sex scandals. However, when we talk about the issue, many think that only the footballers are bad or involved in such dirty games, forgetting that other sports stars are as bad as the footballers. When we look closely at the personal life of cricketers, we find many of them in another side which is sometimes dark. While some have got involved in ball tempering, match-fixing and other on-field scandals, some got involved in shocking sex scandals which dented their personal as well as professional lives.
The following revelations of some cricketers who were caught in sex scandals will convince you that it is not just the footballers that are bad in the game of naughty things but other sports stars as well.
1. Shane Warne
No cricketers have had hit the headlines in sex scandal issue as much as Aussie legend Shane Warne. The king of spin has proved that he is also the king of scandals. From harassing British nurse Donna Wright with a series of smutty phone calls and voice messages, to getting naughty with two 25-year old models, to having fun with a Melbourne stripper, to having extra marital affairs, to kissing his girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley openly in stadium, he has number of controversies to his name.
2. Shahid Afridi
Shahid Afridi, along with teammates Hasan Raza and Atiq-uz-Zaman, was caught in a Karachi hotel room with a group of young women just before leaving for a tournament in Singapore in 2000. The players claimed to be innocent and insisted that the girls had merely come to collect autographs but the Pakistan Cricket Board didn’t believe and dropped all three players from the squad for ICC Champions Trophy that was held later the same year in Kenya. Not just that, an Indian actress named Arshi Khan has claimed that she had a physical relation with the Pakistani super star.
3. Kevin Pietersen
The England cricketer was dating the Playboy model and ‘Big Brother’ contestant Vanessa Nimmo. Their relationship didn’t work out and so Kevin dumped Vanessa after one month affair. The heartbroken model decided to wash off the image of Kevin by revealing how he was a sex addict who often pestered her to get on bed. Nimmo didn’t spare any detail of their intimate moments and revealed that Kevin was desperate for sex and kept pestering her all day and that she certainly wasn’t hit for six by his performance.
4. Chris Gayle
Chris Gayle garners much attention both on field and off it. He is known to be a party animal. The Jamaican cricketer made his name to the list when he was found ‘socialising’ with three British women in his Sri Lankan hotel room during the ICC World T20 2012. Not just this, during World Cup 2015, a lady staff accused him of flashing his genitals on her.
5. Mike Gatting
Mike Gatting was a former England captain and the recipient of Warne’s “ball of the century”. He was was accused by the media for his illicit involvement with a barmaid, Louise Shipman, in his hotel room during the first Test against West Indies at Trent Bridge. He maintained his innocence but the English cricket authorities didn’t buy his version of truth. They explained that he may be right, but he should not have had her up in his room in the first place.
6. Herschelle Gibbs
In his autobiography, ‘To The Point’, Herschelle Gibbs gave numerous of accounts of his own sex life. Describing one such instance ahead of World Cup 1999 group game against Australia, Gibbs wrote: “I just knew I was going to get a century. Perhaps the girl lying in bed beside me had inspired me. She worked at the hotel, where I had befriended her. I guess she was my lucky charm – she certainly was when it came to my batting. I just wish her powers had extended to my fielding and the bladdy dropped catch.”
7. Daryl Tuffey
Daryl Tuffey landed himself in this list on the back of an incident that took place in March 2005. The New Zealand fast bowler was filmed on a mobile phone by two English tourists when he was having sex with a 23-year-old sales representative. The matter, however, could not be substantiated because, despite all the hype and the scandal, the two English tourists went into hiding as soon as the story broke, and the woman involved insists she’s never met Tuffey, and no video clip has ever been forthcoming.
8. Asad Rauf
Asad Rauf, Pakistani umpire and then a part of ICC elite panel of umpires, hit the headlines when a 21-year-old Indian model Leena Kapoor claimed she was having an affair with him and that the umpire had “sexually exploited” her on the pretext of getting married. Rauf claimed that she was just a fangirl. However, he couldn’t prove his claim as numerous intimate pictures of the couple were surfaced on the internet.
9. Ian Botham
Sir Ian Botham, one of the best all-rounders to ever play the game and one of the very few players to receive knighthood, cheated on his wife while having an affair with an Australian waitress. Not just that, he also had a scandalous affair with former Miss Barbados Lindy Field in the 1980s. Interestingly, one particular incident from their steamy affair involved a broken bed.
10. Mohammad Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq
Pakistan threatened to walk out of their South African tour in February 1998 when bowlers Mohammad Akram and Saqlain Mushtaq were ‘mugged’ outside their Sandton hotel. Both players were hurt in the incident. But it was said that the louder the Pakistanis complained, the more rumors began to circulate that Akram and Mushtaq had, in fact, picked up their black eyes and chipped teeth in a bar brawl at a local strip joint called Club 69.
11. The Temple road brothel involving whole Sri Lankan team
Sri Lankan team rocked the cricketing world when one of the biggest sex scandals involving the entire team surfaced in 2005. A Wisden Almanack report claimed that Sri Lankan police had raided a unique brothel in Temple Road, Mount Lavinia, which for the past 10 years had been serving only the professional cricketers. The said racket was busted when a cop, posing as a cricketer, made a 500 rupees booking, before his colleagues took control and arrested eight girls, all in their 20s, and their 78-year-old ‘madam’.
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12. West Indies team in 2005
West Indies team came under “sex allegations” fire when they crashed out of the 2005 VB Series with five ignominious defeats in six matches. Team’s sponsor Digicel blasted the players for having “more telephone numbers of women than runs”. A leaked document quoted Digicel representative Richard Nowell as saying that on the eve of the Windies’ match against Australia in Brisbane, he had heard numerous doors banging and female voices along the players’ hotel corridor well after 1 am.
13. Andre Nel
Former South African speedster Andre Nel was allegedly involved in a clandestine relationship with blonde Latvian Jelena Kultiasova. The glitch was that Nel never revealed to her that he was already married. She figured it out herself and in 2010 and revealed her affair with Nel, claiming that she discovered the truth by searching for him online.
