English cricket for sale

My new best friend, Giles Clarke, is considering selling off English cricket to some bloke, for a lot of money.

I previously thought that the tender only covered a single, one-off match. That alone made me annoyed. Not as irritated as I was this morning, whilst trying to negotiate the exit of Fenchurch Street Station whilst fending off the jingoistic advancements of some freebie newspaper distributors encouraging me to honour St. George’s Day.

“No,” I thought. “Go away.”

Needless to say, they didn’t. St George’s day? What on Earth will they think of next? Let’s All Beat Up The French Day?

Anyway, this state or anger was topped today when I discovered that Allen “Call Me Sir” Stanford is planning to bank-roll an expanded English twenty20 competition to rival the IPL. Why we would want to do such a thing is unclear, but Stanford is only prepared to organise such a useless tournament if he receives assurances from the ECB that they’ll guarantee his investment plus returns.

Cheeky bastard.

This produces is a whole new layer of fury. This makes me angrier than that woman who clips her nails on the train. And I want to kill her. I want to kill her with a cheap rubber spatula such is my accrued wrath.

In a vague, feeble justification, Stanford says that England need to be at the heart of any future evolution of cricket. And hilariously adds,

“The organisation here is better, the management is better, the structure is better.”

Clearly, the Texan billionaire didn’t attempt to catch a Northbound Circle line from Tower Hill this morning, and then worked out, without any official communication, that the Circle Line was delayed, requiring him to walk to Aldgate Station to wait a further twenty minutes during the rush hour for an over-crowded train on another buggered line, resulting him in being late for work. Again. Thoughts of managerial efficiency do not spring to one’s mind in such circumstances.

In any case, the whole thing is shocking and awful and terrible and a betrayal. These people need to be sent to the same place as nail-clipper girl.