Mohammed Shami not the first: Six extramarital affairs that have rocked cricket

New Delhi: A blitzkrieg spell of allegations of torture and extramarital affairs from his wife found India pacer Mohammed Shami at the receiving end of ire on Wednesday morning. He was called a flirt, accused of domestic violence and of threatening to kill. It was a hat-trick of charges no cricketer ought to face in life outside the cricketing pitch. And yet, the 27-year-old was hardly the first from the sport to have been accused of adultery.

Following is a quick recap of well-known faces from the cricketing world who have been accused of having had relations outside of their marriages.

Asad Rauf: On the cricketing pitch, he may have shown the finger to many a batsmen but in the game of life, this Pakistani umpire was caught out by a woman named Leena Kapoor in 2012. Kapoor, a model, alleged that she did not know when she met him that he was a cricket umpire and that Rauf had an affair with her - promising to marry her. Several photos of her and the seasoned umpire also surfaced showing the two in a rather romantic embrace. While Rauf admitted that it was indeed him in the photographs, he said he had never made any promises of marrying her because he was already married with two children. Nonetheless, this and other controversies like alleged involvement in match-fixing hit Rauf hard and he would eventually be dropped from ICC's Elite Umpires'club. Rauf himself eventually opted to retire from being an umpire.

Shane Warne: Here is one cricketer whose name on this list seems almost as certain as on any list detailing world's best bowlers. With a vividly coloured personality, Warne in his young days is believed to have had numerous affairs and flings. It is alleged that Simone Callaghan divorced him after a ten-year marriage because of his wayward tendencies. His engagement to British actress Elizabeth Hurley too didn't culminate into something more concrete although the official reason for the split did not point at Warne's conduct with other women.

Nonetheless, here is a cricketer who has reportedly been in the middle of sexcapades galore - both before, during and after marriage.

Andre Nel: The South African pacer reportedly had an affair with Latvian Jelena Kultiasova at a time when he already had a wife. Local reports suggested that Kultiasova was not told about Mrs Nel and that she eventually chanced upon it herself. She promptly reviewed her decision and Nel was declared out!

Shahid Afridi: At a point in time, this Pakistani all-rounder commanded the largest female-fan following. The Boom Boom man as he is popularly called was suspected to have boomed on the wrong pitch when he and teammates Hasan Raza and Atiq-uz-Zaman were found with a group of women in a Karachi hotel's room. Following the controversy, the three were dropped from the national side for Champions Trophy although each of them maintained that the women were just fans who had barged into their room.

Mike Gatting: He made his international debut for England in 1977,  married Elaine Gatting three years later and went on to score over 6000 international runs. There was though a brief storm in the seemingly perfect English paradise when some sections of the British press accused Gatting of having had an affair with a barmaid called Louise Shipman during a Test against the West Indies at Trent Bridge. The cricketer vehemently denied the allegations. Nonetheless, this would still be looked at as a hiccup in the life of Gatting on and off the field even if he remains happily married to Elaine with two children.

Ian Botham: Gatting may have had a reputation of being a gentleman for most parts but Botham was anything but. Known for his competitive approach to the game, Botham was both admired and admonished for his playing tactics and line of thinking. This well could have been something that attracted Kathryn Waller to marry him in 1976. The two would go on to have a son and two daughters. A perfect family portrait though was briefly rocked off its hinges when British tabloid reported that he had had an affair with an Australian waitress. The cricketer would go on to admit that he had indeed had an affair, issuing a public apology to his wife. Years later, Botham in an interview said he had been a 'bad husband' and that the affair with the Aussie 'nearly wrecked my marriage.'