Mindless game

Australia have normally dominated the Ashes before Steve Harmison has chance to bring the umpire into action. The team had a number of PR vanguards that the ACB would push forward to gob off a few moronic remarks.

Australia teams have always been better at mind games. This isn’t because they are all terrible people – a fact whose veracity we needn’t doubt – it is because they smug, self-satisfied, superiority came from there actual, real, really good superiority.

Since Herr Warne and Glen McGrath, they struggled to find a suitably obnoxious replacement. Ricky Ponting has passed a few windy comments on the lines of, “yeah, look, the other team’s track record is a bit shaky, yeah?”

Mike Hussey a bit of a crack. He has a column in that leading international journal, The London Paper.

But, his problem is that, much as with the rest of the freesheet, it’s shit.

Now Alistair Cook, with all the batting flair of Henry Kissinger and with the cricketing brains of Liberace, has stepped into the fray.

An unlikely candidate to practice the dark arts, Cook’s principal problem with mind games seemingly is the “mind” part. Here’s a report from the Sunday Times:

“Asked for the difference between this Australian side and their predecessors, Cook was reluctant to appear critical. “It’s hard to explain mid-series but one thing that is slightly different is their aura.””

If you want to bring about mental disintegration in the Aussie team, criticise their aura. Also, try to publish pictures of them with “strange, glowing phenomena” floating above their heads, and steal Simon Katich feeling crystals.