England’s success is proof of T20’s randomness

Sorry for the delay in getting back to, but I was preparing my excuse for you.

So I AYALC returns. Various stuff happened to me; various other, more glamorous things, did not.

Prior to the tournament Stuart Broad, no longer the virginal Bambi figure when I started blogging, busied himself by lowering our expectations over the result of the tournament: total England victory.

This shagged out old pro has been around long enough now to recognise a winner, and England’s formula of tedious seamers and buying in foreigners has proven a surprising success. Notwithstanding a rather anomalous loss against the West Indies, which owed more to Duckworth-Lewis peculiarities than superior opposition, England have stormed the competition.

So have Australia, mind you, but we like to be parochial in AYALAC’s dusty, dilapidated towers.

There are some clichés that we can draw out of the hack’s bollocks box of tricks:

• Have England peaked too soon?
• Will the mercurial Pakistan emerge into unexpected success?
• Will England choke in the final?

I offer to you, the traditional AYALAC line, that none of these factors, nor any others relating to skills or confidence, obtain. It’s T20. And therefore we are well into the realm of randomness.

To decide the result, I have thrown my house mate’s stupid little pot plant at the wall. The pathetic carcass of an ex-Bonsai tree is pointing towards the toilet. Chance has spoken: England will win the tournament.