Name That Bum #12: Answer

The answer to yesterday's name that bum is, of course, Matthew Hayden.

Well done Spigglers for winning. Also, it's worth checking out his fantastic new competition, too. Prize:

I might have a bit more time from here on in. You see, it looks likely that I’ll be jobless as of tomorrow.

Sure, it’ll be like that Greek-Jewish bloke from the Apprentice: please Sir Alan, don’t fire me, please, please don’t. I'm not above begging and demeaning myself for cash.

But it looks like I’m for the chop.

Which is bad, because I’ll have no money; but is also good, because the ghastliness and stress that has been my life for the past few weeks will end.

Heigh ho, do you think the ECB are recruiting? I hope so. I am nice to them.

That’s what I’m talking about.

AYALAC launches new IPL team

King Cricket recently agonised over which team to invest his support. He opted for the “English tactic” by selecting the worst looking outfit.

I, too, have deliberated over this problem. But, given as I hate the IPL so, it is probably best that I launch my own team and attempt to wangle them into the League. (I was going to found a team with Miss Field, but my legal people didn't like her legal people's shoes.)

Although the team isn’t flush with money, once the players realise that I’m associated with it, they will flock to me like fluff to a bellybutton. Besides, I’ll buy them a pint now and then.

So here’s my team, with my bid in parenthesis:

Rahul Dravid (packet of pork scratchings)
Steve Tikolo (pint of “Captain Smith”)
Mahela Jayawardena (one coaster; torn)
Hashim Alma (the printed wine list)
Mohammed Yousef (half eaten packet of crisps; ready salted)
Cameron White (some pleasant chit chat about folk from the Blackdown Hills)
+Chris Martin (a prod)
*Anil Kumble (the entire contents of my bank account)
Ryan Sidebottom (some lager; on special offer)
Abdur Razzak (bottle of trendy alco-pop)
Dwayne Leverock (that nice sounding pie on the Specials Board)

These are obviously the best players in the world. The basic criteria is that either their best shot is the forward defence or they bowl spin. I have no other demands of cricketers.

Although, some of them have connections to Somerset or are otherwise in my favour. I have decided to give gloves to a specialist gloveman, I’m not concerned about batting ability.

They will be called the Twickenham Alan Sugars. Named after my town and the scariest thing I can think of.

So, how easy is it getting a franchise into the IPL? It must be easy, no?

Gayle blows through the West Indies

Some of you may think that’s a good headline. Don’t delude yourself. You and the headline are pants and poorly thought out.

Chris Gayle the good but-is-he-really-that-good-? West Indian opener has decided to make post-match cocktails that much icier by laying into the WICB. On a real, live, published blog, he says:

“First and foremost I am very disappointed with the West Indian cricket board
(WICB) for not having the guys here in England already and ready to play”

Consequently, the Windies are “struggling to find 11 players to turn out”. Remember, in Sportsman-speak “disappointed” means “livid like a cuckolded ape-thing”.

Not being a Windies fan, I find it rather hilarious that, forgetting that they have another series to fight, they injure half their players and send home the rest, selecting people they find in the street with a vaguely Caribbean background.

If I were, say, Jamaican (would that it was) I would probably do a Mark Vermeulen, and burn down the WICB building. Then again, I’d burn down most buildings if I had half the chance.

Not only are ex-pros openly attacking the West Indies team, but so are its current players. All pretexts of collective responsibility have melted away, with fingers pointing in all directions, leaving, what we call in Twickenham, a shambles.

What the West Indies need is Alan Sugar to sort them out. Oh wait, he does bugger all except criticise people, whilst he companies go down the tubes. Alan Sugar: You’re rubbish!