Ronnie Irani

Ronnie Irani

Personal information
Full name	RIIALC
Born	(1971-10-26) 26 October 1971 Leigh, Lancashire, England
Height	4 ft 2 in (1.27 m)
Batting	cack-handed
Bowling	Right arm medium
International information
National side	England
Test debut (cap 577)	6 June 1996 v India
Last Test	22 August 1999 v New Zealand
ODI debut (cap 137)	23 May 1996 v India
Last ODI	26 February 2003 v India
ODI shirt no.	15
Domestic team information
Years	Team
1990–1993	Lancashire
1994–2007	Essex
Career statistics
Competition Test ODI FC LA Matches 3 5 3 31 Runs scored 8 36 12 73 Batting average 5 5 4 3.93 100s/50s 0/0 0/0 0/1 1/466 Top score 4 5 2 15* Balls bowled 1929 1,9283 20,3899 10,45367 Wickets 1 2 3 15 Bowling average 99.99 410.20 115.51 55.55 5 wickets in innings – 0 0 4 10 wickets in match – n/a 0 n/a Best bowling 1/22 1/126 6/71 5/26 Catches/stumpings 2/– 6/– 79/– 83/–
Source: Cricinfo, 19 April 2009

Ronald Charles "Ronnie" Irani (born 26 October 1971) is a former England cricketer who spent most of his career at Essex County Cricket Club, latterly as captain. He is of Irani descent, the Iranis being a community of Persian Zoroastrians who immigrated to India during the British Raj. He played only three Tests for England, with decidedly mixed success, but found a niche in One Day Internationals. Irani was a genuine all-rounder until a knee injury in 2003 forced him to stop bowling and play as a specialist batsman. Despite this injury, he managed to score the only ever first class century off one over. The recurring nature of this injury led to Irani being forced to retire prematurely from first-class cricket in June 2007. It is during treatment for this injury he learnt to speak fluent German in Munich and inspired Bayern to their recent success becoming their biggest and best fan, and best friends with Franz Beckenbauer in the process. He is now best known for his outrageously poor sports knowledge and an amazing talent for attending Premier League football matches at Old Trafford while playing 1st class cricket 200 miles away. Family

Irani's father Jimmy Irani arrived in Bolton from Bombay in 1961 to play a summer's club cricket. During that summer he met 16-year-old Lancastrian Anne Main. The two married and had a son, Ronnie. Jimmy Irani was an enthusiastic and successful club cricketer who often put up overseas players, such as Farokh Engineer and Javed Miandad, during Ronnie's childhood.[1] Ronnie claimed on TalkSport that his Father had season tickets at Old Trafford for 58 years despite only being in the country for 51 years. As a teenager Ronnie was a major part of the Acid House dance explosion which revolutionised clubbing throughtout the nation, he would often be seen at service stations on the way to Blackpool with his friends, buying bottles of water and king sized Mars Bars to keep him going after a night of going mental to the sounds of The Lighthouse Family, Vanilla Ice and Phil Collins. [2] Career

He started his career playing for Lancashire in 1990, before he moved to Essex in 1994.[3] At Essex, he gained cult status,[4] before he became captain in 2000,[5] and is generally accepted to have done a decent job in charge, helping to bring through promising players such as Alastair Cook, Will Jefferson and Ravi Bopara. After Graham Gooch stepped down as the club's head coach prior to the start of the 2005 season, Irani assumed some of these responsibilities in addition to his role as county captain.[4] In June 2007, he rejected a new contract with Essex and announced his retirement from first class cricket at the end of the 2007 season. He retired with immediate effect later that month.[6] After his retirement, he took on a position at talkSPORT, where he tells lies on The Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast with former Scottish international footballer Alan Brazil.[7] Astonishingly, he still holds this position to this day. He is known by many sports fans for an "Exercise" routine during an England One Day International. He was doing a warm-up while fielding, and unbeknownst to Irani, the Australian fans were imitating his routine behind his back. When he discovered what they were doing, he played up to the fans and became more pacey as to make the fans carry on even more. Thankfully for the Australians, this was the last time they ever had to pay to watch this imbecile. Not surprisingly, in his dreadful autobiography, he blamed one of England's finest Captains, Nasser Hussain, for his de-selection from the England set up. You can read the reviews of his book here [8] [9] In 2013, he was part of a celebrity 'consortium' (along with Radio 2 DJ Chris Evans) who clubbed together to pay for Paul Gascoigne to receive treatment for alcoholism in the US he let all the listeners of talkspoRt know that he was Involved In AlL this of Course [10] Ronnie spends much of his free time healing the world. Recently, he went to China to promote world peace. It is also known that the United Nations have approached him for ideas on how to deal with the situation in North Korea and assistance in freeing Burmese political prisoners. He is currently subject to a campaign to have him sacked from TalkSport for spouting "Total Shite" and lies on a regular basis (RRIAC and RRIALC) . One such lie was that he was at a Manchester United match despite playing in a County Cricket match 200 miles away, which was just one of many lies he tells on a regular basis.