The artistry of the slump

The England have flirted with many methods of defeat. Indeed, they have prided themselves on their creativity when it comes to losing.

We are currently witnessing Michael Vaughan’s men revive a forgotten favourite from the past: The Undignified Slump. His latest installation can be seen in Hamilton, New Zealand. This show is so moving it is attracting literally tens of people. These people are mainly mad.

So, once again, England’s batsmen fail the “are you any good?" test. I was listening to the radio in bed last night, half paying attention to the cricket, half watching the minotaurs knead bread like the diligent little England fan that I am.

I even listened to the excruciatingly dull lunch time report about Indian twenty20 leagues – as if any of them matter. But, after all that, I threw away my headphones in fuzzy disgust the third ball after lunch.

Strauss, who has been scoring freely and rapidly by deploying a new technique of batting like post-hemorrhagic stroke Geoffrey Boycott armed with two shots, the prod and the leg-side prod, suddenly changed strategy and wofted his bat like a post-stroke Shahid Afridi. This cost him his wicket.

“Ugggh!”

I said, and returned to my happy world of baking monsters.

Now I’m wondering how to classify the England team. Are they evil for doing this to me? Of course, almost certainly. But HOW evil are they?

They’re not as evil as swearing at your mum, but they’re a lot worse than the smell of a public lavatory. Perhaps the precise taxonomic place for England’s wickedness is perhaps best left to the philosophers, but, we must nevertheless appreciate the practical consequence of their appalling play.

England’s incompetence costs mental well-being. Indeed, instead of absorbing all I could from the cricket world yesterday, I spent the entire day watching Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe. All four series.

I know feel like that bloke in the painting.