Craig White, the former England fast bowler, delivered several gems on the Fast Bowling Cartel podcast this week, recalling some of the more colourful moments from a career that took him from Victorian youth cricket all the way to the Test arena. Perhaps the most memorable involved his brother-in-law, Darren Lehmann. Heading into a Test in Brisbane with minimal kit, White borrowed a pair of Nike cricket shoes from Lehmann’s garage — without asking him. “I went in there and there’s this wall full of Nike cricket shoes,” White recalled. “I’m in there going through — yep, I’ll have those and I’ll have those.” It didn’t stay secret for long. Lehmann spotted them from short leg and the sledging started immediately. “He looks at my shoes and goes, ‘You’ve nicked my trainers,’” White said. “Then he yells out to Warnie — ‘Warny, he’s nicked my trainers’ — and I just got absolutely slated by the whole slip cordon.” Before White could gather himself, Lehmann twisted the knife further. “He goes, ‘You low ass, I was saving them for the World Cup.’” At stumps, a handwritten invoice was waiting on White’s dressing room peg. Full spikes, $200. Half spikes, $100. Three hundred dollars total — for shoes that, as McGrath drily noted, Lehmann had almost certainly received for free.” It was White, after all, who introduced his sister Andrea to Lehmann in the first place — inviting her to a pub in Scarborough when she was homesick, figuring some familiar Australian accents would help. They did, perhaps too well. The relationship would be tested again when White dismissed Lehmann in Adelaide — on his first Test on his home ground. Andrea was furious. “We went to the pub after to meet all the family and she wouldn’t speak to me,” White said. “She just gave me the wide berth. We had to sit her down and say, ‘Look Andrea, we’re playing for our country.’” White also had plenty to say about the batsmen who tested him most. Matthew Hayden topped the list. “He was just a bully,” White said. “He walked at you and you knew that if you were millimetres offline he was going to punish you.”Story continues below this ad Glenn McGrath backed that up, adding a tactical detail that made Hayden uniquely difficult to bowl to. “I have bowled against him (in domestic cricket). He decided to bat on off stump, which changed everything,” McGrath said. “He was the only batsman that did that. He was the type of guy that had to get in that battle. You are right, he is a bully!” McGrath also recalled a memorable pre-match moment against Pakistan. “He’s feeling rubbish and we’re batting first and he walked out, looked down the hallway trying to find someone and sees Shoaib Akhtar,” McGrath said. “He yells out — ‘Hey Shoaib, you are shite!’ Poor old Shoaib looks back, not knowing what’s happening, yells something back. Haydos yells a bit back and then Haydos comes in the room — he’s ready to go. Not many batsmen would be that aggressive towards a bowler pregame.” Jason Gillespie picked up the thread with another Hayden-Shoaib story. Walking out to open against Pakistan, Hayden stopped at the top of Shoaib’s mark and sprayed him with abuse before a ball had been bowled. His opening partner Justin Langer was facing first. “Alfie just elbows Haydos in the guts and goes, ‘Mate, I’m facing first ball here — what are you doing?’” Gillespie laughed. White also shared a vivid early memory of Shane Warne on an Australian youth tour to the West Indies — specifically of a bored teenage Warne lying on the baggage carousel at Barbados airport, repeatedly disappearing through the rubber flaps purely for something to do. “Tanned orange, white hair, overweight and talking himself up,” White recalled, adding that there was already something impossible to ignore about him.Story continues below this ad That warmth towards Warne wasn’t always reciprocated. When White crossed codes to play for England, some Australian teammates viewed the move as a betrayal. Warne was among them. White’s response was blunt — he told mutual friends to pass on a simple message. “Just tell Warnie — I knew him when he was a nobody,” he said. “If he wants to be like this, it’s no skin off my nose.”
Stolen boots, a $300 invoice, and Matthew Hayden the bully — Craig White’s podcast is pure gold
