Cockatoo deaths, property scams and drunken brawls

A fast-bowling allrounder who had shown plenty of promise in his short career for New Zealand, Bracewell has been charged with drink-driving three times over a nine-year period. After the latest incident earlier this year, his lawyer offered an astonishing defence, blaming his grief over the death of his pet cockatoo, who had been killed by dogs. Bracewell subsequently lost his national team contract and has been sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

Only months after being named Player of the Match in the World Cup final, Faulkner found himself in a Lancashire district court for hitting the back of a BMW while driving three times over the legal limit of blood alcohol. Faulkner pleaded guilty, was fined £10,000 and banned from driving in the UK for two years.

Pomersbach was yet to play a game for Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2012, when he was detained by the Delhi police for assaulting a woman and her fiancee during a private party in their hotel room. The IPL duly released a statement that it was "not responsible", and that it had bigger issues to handle, with verbal fisticuffs between Mumbai Cricket Association officials and Kolkata Knight Riders' owner Shah Rukh Khan hogging all the headlines that week. Luckily for Pomersbach, the case was withdrawn less than a week later.

Gibbs was arrested after failing a breath-analyser test while driving under the influence of alcohol. The charges were later withdrawn, after which he underwent rehabilitation for drug and alcohol abuse. Six years later, he was in the middle of the storm once again, caught for the same offence, for which a trial is still underway. These incidents, however, were only the latest in his long history of run-ins, having been suspended and fined for agreeing - and then forgetting - to under-perform in an ODI against India in 2000, apart from being sent home for staying out all night during his Under-19 days in 1992.

He was a sublime strokemaker who played 13 Tests for England but Wayne "Ned" Larkins' cowboy attitude tended to leave his fans exasperated. It seemed he had transferred those talents to his life after cricket, with both he and his girlfriend, Deborah Lines, facing jail following a £155,000 property scam. After it was heard how Lines had forged her father's signature to take over ownership of a house, which was then used to obtain a £91,000 mortgage on a holiday home in France, Larkins pleaded guilty to deception, but was later spared a jail sentence, and ordered to pay back £54,000, apart from a 12-month suspended sentence for the pair.

Cricket's King of the Jungle has never been far from the headlines in a tempestuous career, which included match-winning bowling performances against West Indies, New Zealand and Australia, an allegation of dope-smoking in a Christchurch toilet, a night in a psychiatric ward in Australia, and countless front-page appearances during his rocky relationship with his former partner, Jane McEvoy. "In my time I've been arrested, spent a night in the cells on three separate occasions I can remember, and been hit over the head with a half brick by a man I sincerely believe wanted to kill me for the treatment of his daughter," Tufnell wrote in his autobiography, What Now?.

A former Australian Test legspinner, Terry Jenner is the man credited with being one of the driving forces behind the success of Shane Warne, following which he became a much sought-after coach. After his playing career ended, he was, by his own admission, a mess, and in September 1988, he was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison after stealing his employer's funds to pay off gambling debts. "You'll find out who your ****ing friends are now Jenner," said the prison head on his arrival. Jenner served 18 months inside before starting to rebuild his life with great success. His story is superbly told in his book Over The Top.

Ian Botham's time with Queensland ended under a cloud when he was arrested by Perth police after an incident on a domestic flight, where a passenger objected to some language being used by Botham and his state team-mates. Botham took the man's head, turned it to the front and told him it had "**** all to do with you". At the station, the officer asked Botham to sign a bat before charging him. In the end, Botham was bailed by Dennis Lillee, who turned up with a six-pack and his 12-year-old son (who told his father he "wanted to be able to tell his mates he'd seen Botham behind bars"). Botham pleaded guilty, and was fined £400 and, soon after, the Queensland board decided to terminate his contract.