It is no secret to the West Indians have a quirky sense of humour. Kieron Pollard, the towering West Indian and Mumbai Indians all-rounder displayed that virtue at the Chinnaswamy stadium in a 2015 IPL game against the home side RCB. One of the on-field umpires was not happy with Pollard trying to get under Chris Gayle’s skin after the Trinidadian had quite a few things to say to his compatriot as Bangalore began their chase of a mammoth 210 run target.
After Pollard was asked to maintain proper distance and control the chatter, he responded by promptly putting some tape on his mouth. He literally taped up his mouth to show that he would do absolutely no talking, sledging or otherwise. When he had to talk to a teammate, he peeled off an edge of the tape to talk and put the tape back on.
The Bangalore crowd, the commentators and the Mumbai players and support staff in the dugout were all in splits. The only one who didn’t see the funny side of it was Gayle. Be it his explosive hitting, stunning catches or his on-field antics, Pollard has been in the spotlight all the time. Rewind to 2014, when he made headlines for throwing his bat in disgust against RCB pacer Mitchell Starc at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai. In an interview with TOI, terming the tape incident as his ‘funniest moment in IPL’, Pollard claimed that he has been constantly targeted by the umpires ever since the Wankhede incident.
