England waylaid by cobras

England continue to be attacked by the wild-life of Sri Lanka. In their last tour, which, I understand, was about five minutes ago, I reported that England were badgered by gangs of feral dogs and hounded by killer pythons.

England’s return has heralded the re-emergence of Sri Lanka’s secret weapon: terrify the crap out of the touring opposition with beasties.

This is a tactic that Australia have successfully employed for many years. Most people erroneously believe that the Ausslers win at home because they are “better” or have wider bats. This is untrue.

Preceding every game, the touring party is harassed by a specialised animal team, which places scorpions into slippers, black widows in coffee and rare Australian Death Eels down the pyjama bottoms of sleeping tourists.

This campaign of using Australia’s weirdly dangerous fauna effectively destroys the nerves of the overseas squad and ensures test victories every time.

The ECB attempted this strategy in 1997, but the tourists got all excited at the “really cute” invading squirrels in the hotel rooms and increased the frequency of barbeques. It was later argued that this gave unnatural strength to touring squad and the mistake was never repeated.

Anyway, TMS, as ever keen to distract themselves from the cricket, took great pains to report in detail the “snake incident”. Apparently, there was a split within the party; Graeme Swann was convinced they were anacondas, whereas Matthew Hoggard was certain that they were just heavy drinking worms.

Here’s a TMS picture so you can judge for yourself:
Personally, I think it's a Plasticus Bottalias, which can be dangerous if you stand on them.