<
>

Streaker's run ends in encounter with cricket player's shoulder

It was supposed to be a cricket match -- and a rugby game broke out.

A streaker ran into more trouble than
expected during a cricket match Tuesday in Brisbane, Australia. As Robert Murray David Ogilvie dashed across the pitch, eluding security guards and police, he got a tad too close to Australia's Andrew Symonds.

Symonds -- who, according to The Times of London, does some preseason training with the Brisbane Broncos rugby league team -- lowered his shoulder and dropped Ogilvie.

Ogilvie was escorted away by police.

Symonds -- who probably was not in the greatest of moods anyway, with Australia losing to India -- could have faced sanctions because he technically violated the International Cricket Council's regulation that deals with "physical assault on another player, umpire, referee, official or spectator."

However, Michael Brown of Cricket Australia said Symonds would not be punished.

"He was dealing with self-preservation, which we support 100 percent," Brown told reporters, according to The Times of London.
"Andrew was in the zone and was severely threatened. No person has the right to impinge upon another person's space, particularly a sportsman plying his trade."

Ogilvie, a 26-year-old miner from a suburb south of Brisbane, was charged with interfering with persons engaged in sport and willful exposure. He pleaded guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court, and was fined $1,500 (Australian), but no conviction was recorded, according to The Times.

Ogilvie told the police that he had been drinking with his brother and friends at the match, and decided taking off his clothes and sprinting across the field "was just something he had to do."

Ogilvie said he would not be streaking again, but also did not show any regret when asked by reporters how it felt to be leveled by Symonds.

"It was great actually … just like playing football," he said, according to The Times. "You only live once, don't you?"

Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.