Wednesday, March 11, 2009

What England can do about being shit

Everyone, at one point in their life, has looked themselves in the mirror and thought "nope, shit".

Even those that haven't, and want to "excel" and "achieve", usually go on to become generally regarded as "shits".

So, now comes a reflective moment for the England cricket team, and all they can see is shit. Puddles and puddles of gooey, poorly bonded shit.

People criticise the critics: "why must you be so critical?" say they. Well, here's the official AYALAC guide for being less shit:

1. Bowl as if you had played before

To become good at something you either need to pay someone else to do it for you, or to practice. England broke the record for the worst bowling performance ever in Port of Spain - second most extras conceded in an innings.

Apparently, in a list the worst bowling performances ever, England feature in over 40% of them.

I know. I did an excel spreadsheet. That's how you make blogging look like work - for you amateurs out there. In any case, this statistic is a sign. Rather like an omen of the second coming, a shitty sign.

2. Get rid of the rubbishy players in bring in less rubbishy ones

No really, it works.

3. Rule the team with an iron fist

England's main problem is the emergence of a private life for the players. That the players think of something other than cricket has become "acceptable" is not only a sign of weakness in the ranks, but indicative of the broader corruption of society generally.

Sex lives of all players must cease. For the good of the country.

A threat of mutilation for dropping averages wouldn't go amiss, either.

4. Cheat

England, for too long, have played fair, following the spirit of the laws and generally behaved in the cricketing way. It's time to follow Australia - not to Australia, obviously, who'd want to do that? Horrible place; full of spiders. No, we must relearn the science of cheating.

This goes beyond the dark arts of Murray Mints and jelly beans, we have to start thinking about creative use of the equipment at hand. After all, the cricket bat originally started life as a weapon.

We must use the resources available to us to prevent the opposition from freely scoring runs, or from running freely.

5. Replace the team with robots

By my reckoning, its four years since the mysterious Merlyn came into being. Which makes is qualified for the England team. That it can't run or operate effectively in the field only marginally disadvantages it against players such as Owais Shah.

It is claimed that the machine can bowl every ball known to man, which is some claim; there are a lot of men and therefore a lot of balls.

Although the inevitable mechanisation of the England bowling unit leads us to interesting possibilities: perhaps the future is all about technology in cricket.

Maybe we'll witness giant bowling guns fire 500 mph death balls at Mega-Slogotron 5.0; gawp at stratospheric sixes; and delight in lighting quick catches in continental-sized fields.

Although watching a batbot getting hit in the robo-goolies would be significantly less amusing.

9 comments:

Rob said...

You forgot

"Pick players from less shit countries". Oh, it looks like we tried that already...

Unknown said...

How about picking Holly Colvin, she's less shit than Anderson.

Merlyn is a solid idea, but like your good mate Steve would get homesick and start bowling to 2nd slip as soon as it crossed the equator. Perhaps Harmisson IS a robot..

Anonymous said...

Or you could get creative like the Australian Selectocrats and select an under-arm bowler

Anonymous said...

Is this your application for the head coach position?

cricketanalysisdotcom said...

To be honest I can never understand why England suck so badly. There are plenty of people playing the sport, they have a great domestic system, the country is wealthy compared to most of the others who play cricket, yet they haven't been good for 30 years.
Maybe it wouldn't make a difference but I think to make things fair they should become "Europe" instead, like is done with the West Indies.
It would be great if you could add my stats blog to your blogroll. I have a projection system that has the Windies as 60% favorites in the ODI series (shame they threw the game away when they were maybe just slightly ahead).
http://www.cricketanalysis.com

Amy said...

cricketanalysis -
I think England may have had a curse put on them by a witch. Perhaps it's punishment for Bodyline a few generations on. That would explain why Bradman mysteriously went "hiking in the Guatemalan highlands" shortly after that series.

Or maybe they're just plain shit.

The Round Oval said...

England is shit because the county system is shit. In Australia, there are only 6 teams, and they are all (well, except for the T20 comp) filled with Aussies. In England there are far too many teams, and they are half filled with imports (most of which are no where near international standard). This means that less poms get to play a decent level of cricket. And don't get me started on 40 over ODD matches.

And they are England, which implies they are shit at any sport they have invented.

scanners said...

What you do with shit is spread it very thinly over the grass playing surface and wait for the green shoots of recovery - if not, try a different pile of shit.

scanners said...

Perhaps we can offer incentives to degenerates like Steve Harmless-on, such as a trip to Disneyland, so that he can rehabilitate himself. Its not his fault he's veered off the straight and narrow..