To put Franco’s 4 bottles in a night effort into context, here is an excerpt from ‘One For The Road’ as written by Martin Williamson for Cricinfo:
Doug Walters 1977
Few geniuses of top-class sport have been able to scale the heights with such a marked disregard for their bodies. Walters’ drinking and smoking habits would floor a small elephant. In 1977 he instigated the competition to see how many cans of lager could be consumed on the flight between Australia and England. Most of the team took part. Kim Hughes was an early leader before he crashed and burned by the time they reached Singapore, and by the end it was Walters against Rod Marsh. The drinks kept coming – “You wouldn’t get that service on a plane now,” Walters grinned later. “Then, every time they walked past Marshy and I, they dropped four cans on our thing … they were probably the instigators more so than us.” As the plane touched down, Walters finished can No. 44. “He was all right … just,” said team-mate Kerry O’Keeffe. “He was lighting cigarettes filter-first. I guess that’s all right. You can do that sober.”
Rod Marsh 1983
Marsh set out to beat Walters’ record on the flight from Australia to England en route to the 1983 World Cup. Dennis Lillee was against the idea and thought the way round it was to take Marsh on a bender the night before. It failed. “He was ready to start as soon as we boarded, and it wasn’t just a case of lining up the tinnies,” Lillee recalled. “He had pace-setters and scorers to make sure it was all official. He was taking this record very seriously, and we had the full backing of the aircraft crew, who knew that he was trying to set the record. One of the stewardesses kept telling him: ‘You keep drinking them and I’ll keep bringing them’.” He finished with 48, passing out on arrival at Heathrow. “Rod wasn’t too good for several days after we landed … but he blamed it on the jet lag.”
David Boon 1989
Records are there to be broken, and 12 years after Marsh, the man nicknamed the “Keg on Legs” left Marsh in his wake when he demolished 52 cans on an Australia-England flight. In an era of fitness trainers and nutritionists, it’s a record likely to stand, and even now Boon refuses to discuss it. It was also a solo effort. “Nobody accompanied Boonie,” Geoff Lawson said. “We were all a bit more sensible. There weren’t too many big drinkers in the team then. I think the culture of the 70s changed through the 80s.” Boon passed out and awoke to a round of applause. “Bob Simpson [the coach] thought somebody had won a card game, until the plane’s captain announced Boon had consumed 52 beers,” recalled Dean Jones. “Simpson went purple with anger and I mentioned that maybe Boonie should be sent home.” Jones crashed out on arrival at the team hotel in London, only to be woken by the concierge asking for him to come down and collect his sleeping room-mate – Boon.
The Tugboat Times 