Cricket team blames defeat on grass pitch

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Cricket team blames defeat on grass pitch
Liam Houlihan
11mar05

A COUNTRY cricket team claims players from a rival side fed it drug-laced cupcakes to get an edge in a make-or-break game.

The Nerrena cricket club in Gippsland was playing a vital away game when host team Inverloch served up an afternoon tea of green-speckled cupcakes.
"I thought `gee this is pretty good, they usually feed us crap'," Nerrena's Tim Clark said. He ate five cupcakes.

Inverloch and the local cricket league say there is no evidence to support the Nerrena claims.

"As far as I'm concerned it's all rumours and this is just a witchhunt," Inverloch club secretary Ian Smith said.

Three visiting players ate the cakes, which they now believe were laced with either hash or marijuana. Returning to the field following tea, Nerrena's game went to pieces.

One player took almost 20 minutes to put on his pads. Others broke out in hysterical laughter and fled the field during play to drink water.

The three players, who claim to have never tried marijuana, said they did not know why they felt strange and assumed they were sunstruck.

It was only when Mr Clark described his symptoms to someone at the local pub that night that he was told: "Mate, you've been slipped a mickey."

Dave Trotman, who ate three cupcakes, was admitted to hospital with uncontrollable vomiting days after the match.

He was put on a drip for two days and missed his own bucks party. Doctors were stumped as to the cause of his sickness.

Mr Clark was still light-headed after the match as he tried to put a kit bike together for that night's club fundraiser.

"After a small lie-down, I tried to follow the instructions but I was all over the shop. I was putting the handlebars where the seat was meant to be."

When he eventually completed the bike, he was four hours late for the club function.

Gary Knox, president of the Leongatha District Cricket Association, said it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that the cupcake catastrophe was a practical joke gone wrong, but proving that would be much harder.

He said he couldn't understand why the players had not gone to police with their claims.

Mr Knox said when the accusations were first made, the association had summoned Inverloch to a meeting but the club failed to attend.

"(Inverloch's) explanation was their own internal investigation had found nothing had gone on," he said.

But Nerrena players and their families are angry at what they say is a cover-up.

They claim Inverloch has gagged its players from admitting to the incident and say they are frustrated four months on that there has been no apologies, admissions or disciplinary action.

Mr Trotman's father Brian was one of those unhappy with Inverloch's self-investigation.

"One of the (association committee) members said to me: `You blokes can't even get your story straight. One said he had five cupcakes, one said he had four cupcakes'. Inverloch said there was only seven to start with," Mr Trotman said. "They're just trying to sweep it all under the table. They didn't even bother interviewing the three that had the cakes."

The players who ate the cupcakes all drove home from the game.

"If the police had tested me for drugs as I drove home, and I came up positive, what could I have said to them? – `It wasn't me, I was fed drugged cupcakes at cricket'.

"I feel like ringing (the association president) and saying `How would you like it if your daughters were slipped a mickey?' On the association's booklet it says `Good sports don't let their mates drink and drive' but when it comes down to it, they just want it all hush-hush.

"They don't want to be the first ever association that this has happened to."

Nerrena lost the game by 50 runs, which sparked a losing streak for the shaken team.

"We were bottom and they were second bottom – fighting not to end up wooden spoon," Mr Clark said.

"Now we're getting relegated to second division and they're moving up as finals contenders."


http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12506181^2862,00.html