Lies about cricket

Andrew Strauss’s wedgie handle

There’s all sorts of odd cricket equipment around these days, but we’ve no idea why someone would attach a handle to their own underwear to better enable them to self-wedgie.

England’s brilliant white kit

A lot of people are asking whether England’s new Test kit is the whitest ever seen on a cricket field.

It isn’t. That honour goes to the outfit worn by Algernon Denby-Farthing in a match for Yorkshire against Kent in 1885.

Denby-Farthing was obsessive about the cleanliness of his whites, inspecting them for upwards of an hour prior to each day’s play and frequently changing mid-over.

On the day of this particular match, his clothing had attained such an extraordinary level of whiteness that the Kent bowlers were being blinded during their run-ups. The umpires finally resolved this by moving one of the sightscreens into the middle of the pitch, obscuring Denby-Farthing from the bowlers, who were forced to deliver the ball over the top of it.

Denby-Farthing was eventually dismissed for 42 after a fearsome straight drive rebounded off the sightscreen and into the hands of fine leg.