Cricket's climate is changing. In the mind's eye it remains a sport that defines tranquility, but on the pitch it is starting to suffer more severely from the sort of unruly behaviour that afflicts other sports: this summer, for example, we have had Pakistan taking the law into their own hands, England's women being accused of incessant, unsportswomanlike trash-talking against India, and Chris Read being restrained from having a pop at Mushtaq Ahmed in a county match. In July there was even the surreal role-reversal of football telling cricket how to keep its house in order, after the furore sparked by Marco Materazzi's sledging of Zinédine Zidane in the World Cup final.
These incidents are not new, even for cricket - in Toronto in 1997, a bat-wielding Inzamam-ul-Haq went looking for an abusive spectator, and in a 2004 club game in Sri Lanka an umpire was beaten to death with a stump - but they are arguably becoming more frequent. Now cricket's reputation has taken another hit after the former Zimbabwe batsman Mark Vermeulen was banned from first-class and league cricket in England for 10 years for throwing a ball into the crowd during a Lancashire League match.
As with Zidane/Materazzi, the incident invites one particular question: what could have been said to provoke such an extreme response? Was it about his mother? His sister? His wife? His children? His religion? His weight? His height? His looks? Not quite: it concerned his sunglasses.
"He got hit for a boundary then bowled a wide and someone from the crowd shouted: 'If you take your sunnies off you'll be able to see where you are bowling," said John Selby, who was playing for Ashton against Vermeulen's Werneth side. "At the end of the over he marched towards the boundary and appeared to hurl a ball towards the spectators. It hit the railings so missed everyone, but it was an end-of-season match with plenty of women and children watching."
Nor did Vermeulen stop there. "He then picked up a boundary marker, which are white discs with a steel spike, before being stopped by a Werneth member and marched back to the pavilion, still swearing and shouting. He was then driven away from the ground and took no further part in the match."
It all makes Eric Cantona's kung-fu contretemps with Matthew Simmons in 1995 seem like a minor disagreement.
