T'Ain't Cricket to Throw Jelly Beans!

From the news of the weird... most Yanks will probably never understand cricket, which may well be the only game in which the scores are higher than an NBA blowout. Sure, there are balls and bats and fielders like there are in baseball, but what the heck is a "sticky wicket" or a "googly"? We can rest assured, of course, that our cricket-fan brethren are probably equally nonplussed by "dinger" and "Texas-league single."

Sports being sports, however, it apparently makes no difference whether the game is baseball, cricket, or even ice hockey. Ice hockey? sure: fans of the Nashville Predators are prone to throwing catfish on the ice between periods (or even during a game); much the same as the occasional Detroit Red Wings fan flings an octopus --- but have you ever heard of anyone throwing jelly beans? Well, it happened in a cricket match more than a decade ago (29 July, 2007), when the all-India team was touring England. During a match in Nottingham, a batter for the Indian team complained that English players were throwing things at him... jelly beans, to be precise.

Zaheer Kahn brought a few of the delicious morsels to the umpire, but when an English player joined the conversation he dropped a few beans himself, thereby lending credence to Kahn's complaint. According to Sportswallah, Kahn soon proceeded to demonstrate to the Brits that throwing sugary candy at their opponents ain't cricket; and his team won the match after the Indian scalped five wickets in a row. Nope, I kid you not... he scalped 'em!

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