Ball-throwing fury earns 10-year ban

A former Test batsman has been banned from English first-class and league cricket for 10 years for throwing a ball at spectators.

The Zimbabwean Mark Vermeulen, 27, was playing in a Central Lancashire League match for Werneth against Ashton on Sunday, and had been the subject of taunts while bowling a disappointing over, during which he was hit for four. He reacted by walking towards the boundary and hurling the ball in the direction of the spectators, but the ball hit railings.

He had to be restrained by club officials as a Werneth member led him back to the pavilion before his captain, Darren Shadford, conceded the match.

Howard Dronsfield, chairman of the Central Lancashire League, who was a spectator, said: "There was a nasty atmosphere which in the main part had been instigated by Mark, but when he threw the ball at the crowd I was gobsmacked."

Pictures recorded on a mobile phone show Vermeulen screaming a furious tirade of expletives in the direction of a Werneth official. At one point he appears on the film to take a swing at a team-mate who looks as though he is trying to defuse the situation.

After the match was conceded, Vermeulen was driven home to his flat next to the Werneth ground. He was later arrested but not charged.

"Discipline is a big issue for me and I'm determined to stamp anything like this out," Dronsfield said. "It's not just about spectators either - there was a 15-year-old boy among Vermeulen's team-mates and it's not the kind of example he should set."

It is not Vermeulen's first brush with trouble. In 1996 he was banned from representing his school for uprooting his stumps after receiving a poor lbw decision. He was then sent home from the Zimbabwe tour of England in 2003 for persistent misconduct.