Give me the fucking captaincy or I'll smash your fucking block off

Strauss' negotation tactic revealed.

England’s revolutionary move to appoint a Zimbabwean coach

Breaking into entirely new territory, the ECB have installed a former Zimbabwean player as their glorious leader. Known for his nonplussed demeanour and frog-like appearance, the former Zimbabwean captain promises to bring new steel to the floppy England line-up that has been struggling against even weakened opposition.

His name is Andy Flower. Prepare yourself for a new era of truly unbearable sub-editing.

Asked on his relationship with captain Andrew Strauss, Flower said,

“Yeah, it’s good.”

He later added.

“He gets back from his holiday soon.”

Obviously, the team’s captain leaving the country in protest of the Zimbabwean’s elevation to the highest coaching position in the universe isn’t the best of starts. But, he has more demanding problems ahead: Kevin Pietersen.

That a relationship between a Saffer and a bloke from Zim should be a factor in the future of the England cricket team show’s you just how far we have all come.

From over there, to over here.

The grass always looks greener on the other side; although the flowers always look crap.

Not converting enough double hundreds

Sure, the English batsman are treading water, they’re just about doing enough, but are they delivering what we need?

Andrew Strauss has again demonstrated England’s lack of mental fortitude by failing to knock off a double hundred after scoring a lowly big hundred.

Large centuries might be enough at county level, and they might just about secure your place in an already complacent line-up, but we’re playing test match cricket now, and opportunities need to be taken.

Especially these days, when pitches have as much threat in them as my toothless, octogenarian nan after her third gin and tea. Frankly, there’s no excuse.

The jump from an imposing, but not necessarily decisive 142 to a certain match-winning 200 is small. Just 58 runs. Not an impossible gap to bridge. Look, I just did it on my keyboard:

142 + 58 = 200

Giving the simple arithmetic involved, an accountant like Andrew Strauss should know better than succumbing to an irresponsibly low score.

I am disappointed in you.

At least young Cooky had the decency to play for the team and whack a quick fifty.

Viva la revolution! Viva la Banana Republic!

Ding dong the witch is dead! Viva la presidente!

Well it’s been a rollercoaster 24 hours, hasn’t it?

I’ve been trying to explain to the various Europeans in my company the enormity of the events surrounding the Pietersen affair, and none of them quite get it.

So, I will explain it to you. I can’t see your eyes glazing over.

First off, this is probably the best thing to have happened in English cricket for a while. Not just because we sacked an absolute bastard, but because we did so in such a hilarious fashion.

Sure, the ECB didn’t want to be pushed around by some jumped up, over-hyped, over-sexed, David Beckhamesque Saffer – we all have egos, don’t we? And without self-respect what are we? Well, we’re English, but not much more, I tell ya. Not much more at all.

Secondly, the press’ response to this has been excellent. For instance, take this yesterday’s cricinfo headline:

“Breaking News: ECB yet to clarify situation.”

Breaking news indeed.

Anyway, this whole debacle couldn’t have come at a worse time for England, notwithstanding impending Ashes doom, but they have already gone through all their senior players, and the leadership cupboard is looking a bit bare at the moment.


So, the only plausible candidate got the job: Andrew Strauss. But for some, he looks a bit flat. Allen Lambchops said that,

"Unfortunately, I don't think Strauss will play in all three dimensions so that will create a problem. That is why they picked Pietersen - he can play all three dimensions."

That Strauss is struggling to enter the third dimension, is problematic for him and the rest of the England team in general. It is said that he need a fag to get him down the stairs in the morning.

It didn’t take long for KP’s magic man milk to go sour. Probably because everyone hated him. Andrew Flintoff supposedly lead a rebellion against him. Even Harmison decided to actually express an opinion.

I wonder what KP is doing right now. Feeling a moron, no doubt. Although, it won’t be all touchy feely in the Pietersen camp

Before this ridiculous mess, Pietersen was considered a world-class batsman, in all forms of the game, a feared presence at the wicket and a widely respected player. Now, he’s just a moron who bungled his way out of the job that he coveted for so long. For a man with limitless ambition, he is now constrained from developing any further.

Apparently, he doesn’t have the nowse to act as captain, to play the game and didn’t even have the respect of his own team-members. There is no where else for him to go. He’s just a batsman, and can go no further.

Undoubtedly he’ll make a big show of swaggering back onto the international stage (surely these IPL’s murmurings are not a realistic option for KP; besides, he’s already stated his intention to stay with England) but some of the aura of the man has drained away.

Most cutting is the public exposure of his weaknesses, and of his status as a perennial outsider - a foreigner who finds it hard to get along with others, arrogant yet, almost endearingly, desperately seeking acceptance. There is a tragedy about the man, a dichotomy. His success is brings a form of acceptance, yet this success is brought about by his uncompromising self-assuredness, the very quality that drives others away.

You could write a play about the anguish of the Pietersen soul: A Comedy of Twattishness.

AYALAC raises tone of Wisden

Simon Jones, pictured above, has been hanging around my house recently. He’s really looking forward to the new edition of the Wisden Cricketer.

It’s usually a flighty, even racy, publication, so he’s hoping for something a little more high brow this month.

As the rest of the England team gather around the latest copy, excitement builds: perhaps we could have some serious, hard-hitting articles on Andrew Strauss, perchance?

Ryan Sidebottom, however, is more interested in the poster of himself. You should see his bedroom. He’s mad for it, him.

What’s this? Simon Jones has found something to interest him. An article by AYALAC! Dominating the most important page of any self-respected magazine: page 22. The page of kings.

Alec Guinness gets a little jealous of a photo that isn’t of him.

Richie Benaud reads the whole piece. Because this is a photograph, you can’t see his vigorous nodding. But he is. Well, as vigorously as when Richie moves towards a bottle of plonk.

Video 9: The Empire Strikes back

We're back in business!

The trouble with Strauss

As many young, embittered economists have discovered, the real world rarely conforms to the neat axioms and models you create. You say that if X, then Y. But, in reality, X results in seagull. So, no Nobel Prize for you.

Andrew Strauss encapsulates this dynamic nicely. After England’s pisspoor first innings performance in the third test of their series against New Zealand, English fans wanted change. We wanted blood. Batsmen’s blood.

First on our list was Straussy. Sure, he was a class act, with a proven track-record against strong opposition, but that was then, this is now. It’s like putting your 14 year-old child into a little sailor’s outfit; it would have looked cute ten years ago. But things have changed: he’s into drugs and girls now – not cuteness.

It was in this context of the sailor suit of death swinging perilously over Andrew Strauss in which he had to prove himself. He was not long for this world. We began to make plans: Surely Owais Shah will be the next Don Bradman.

Then Strauss hit a big score. He held England’s innings together with a massive 177. Indeed, he saw out the third day on 173 not out. It was a masterful and professional performance.

This irritating success, coupled with the rather un-English and frankly greediness of the unnecessarily large hundred, has buggered up all our lovely plans about a perfect future of no Andrew Strausses.

No one is sure what to do now. We can’t really have a go at the ECB, they selected a player who made a substantial contribution. That he has done so is annoying as hell, but it is sort of the point of the game.

I’ll just have to find a secondary, rather irrelevant point and take out my anger on that. WHAT! YOU DIDN’T HAVE AN EXTRA COVER FOR JIMMY?!?! YOU BASTARDS! I’LL KILL YOU ALL.

Strangely, that does feel better. In any case, well done Straussy. Please don’t get crap again.

Andrew Strauss: Worthy of equipment?

I have an idea. England’s batsmen should earn the right to wear protective equipment. If you have, say, averaged 40 plus in the last ten matches, you get to wear the whole works – pads, gloves, the lot.

However, if you are, say, Ian Bell, and have been getting runs, but not converting fifties into centuries, then you are prohibited from wearing a helmet. You’re doing ok, but if you don’t shape up, you risk the chance of concussion and series brain damage.

If you name is Andrew Strauss, then you are denied the use of a box.

That’s incentive enough for any man.

You may expect a slightly bitter tone here. You wouldn’t be far wrong. I have just fired up Test Match Special, and I join my team on eight runs for the loss of three wickets.

England have thrown away much chance of winning the series, because of some kid, who the Kiwis snuck out of school, demolished our upper order in under five minutes.

Only severe pain at the hands of our enemies can rectify this. Constant and significant physical discomfort is the only chance that our batters will learn that being a useless collection of over-paid scarecrows is not acceptable to The Atheist.

I demand that Peter Moores hides the squad’s protective equipment.

Strauss is the new Harmsprakash

Some time ago, I invented something truly original. Something so monstrously unique that the whole world was forced to run away in terror and ignore it. Such was its originality that it was as if no one had ever heard of it.

But I knew better. I knew the truth.

Now, I resurrect that concept and apply it to modern cricket:

Andrew Strauss is the new Harmsprakash.

This beast, or medical condition, if you will affects cricketers who have extreme talents. These specimens are capable of scoring unusually high number runs or taking a chronically high number of wickets.

Mark Ramprakash and Stevey Harmison are two such examples. But their afflictions have spread to young Straussy.

This young Wing Commander took to international cricket like a swarm of ducks to a vulnerable old women’s bag of bread. He scored a century on his debut at Lord’s, propped up England’s batting in South Africa, did the business in the 2005 Ashes and generally looked a cert to take over England’s position as Our Only Good Player.

Then, when his temporary office of captain was given to a pisshead Northerner, he fell to pieces like a shaggy flannel in the wind.

The ECB, acting the part of a benevolent and deluded uncle, offered to give Strauss a rest and let him back in gently into the tour of New Zealand. But Strauss hasn’t really done anything since his spell of rubbishness to prove that he’s now a superstar again.

In the current match against no one in particular, he took 17 balls to slog five, before being caught out by How. HOW?

In fairness, no Englishmen distinguished himself in the match, but, the others don’t need to.

Strauss hasn’t really done anything to suggest progress at test level. And given his current medical condition, it might be a rather cruel thing to push him back into the international arena when his clearly isn’t capable of holding a bat, let alone swooshing it about in a productive fashion.

I rather suspect that selecting Strauss here could end his career.

Strauss: I’m just unlucky

In a response to his royal dropping by the selectors, Strauss has said:

"I have been a victim of some poor umpiring decisions, some unfortunate dismissals and a few incredibly good balls delivered at just the wrong moment.”

Which, frankly, is just bollocks.

Ian Bell went through an “unlucky” period. This involved him getting lots of “incredibly good balls” which resulted in nicks to the slips. Then, he adjusted his technique, and now hits loads of centuries. But perhaps that is just a co-incidence.

It is also a co-incidence that all the test match bowlers reckon that Strauss has serious flaws in his technique. And once you eliminate square cuts from his game, apparently the only way he scores runs, then he looks desperately under-prepared for international cricket.

Remember also that he has been moaning about “too much cricket.” In fairness, so have we all, but you must be careful what you wish for. However, you may have expected a little more sensitive treatment of a former England captain, and out leading run scoring in many series. He seems to feel a little injured by the whole affair:

"To say that it hurts is a massive understatement. In truth it is the culmination of a long, tiring and immensely frustrating 12 months in which little has gone my way,"

Of course, this is whinge. I think that last statement could apply to pretty much everyone in the world. Look at my last year: shit carpets my life’s journey, but do I moan to the Daily Telegraph? No, I just get on my bike and blog bitter complaints to no one in particular - like a real man.

England not bad, but incredibly stupid

I think more or less every person in England wants to hunt down Andrew Strauss and beat him to death with the MCC manual. Well, perhaps not to death – he wouldn’t be much good in the second innings. Although I doubt whether the scorers would notice the difference.

Why are you playing a hook shot? WHY?

Anyway, that was yesterday’s rubbish. We have yet to look at today’s beauties: Consider Ian Bell’s flailing willow, Ryan Sidebottom’s moment of monkey fuck and Matthew Prior’s decent into Geraint Jonesdom.

All balls.

So, it’s left to Monty Panesar and Chris Tremlett to put on a 700-run partnership to put the game safe for England and win the game. You think this is not possible? You think that there is something that Monty can’t do? Duncan Fletcher thought that, and he’s fat. Do you want to be fat? Do you? Do you? Well then.

I would say “well done India”. But I’m not going to.

I will say: ANIL KUMBLE HAVE MY BABIES. I have long championed the skills of this hardy warrior. Just look how tough he is. Anil Kumble is the God. Yes, that’s right, we have a new GOD here at Ayalac.

Almost Monty amazing. But not quite. Monty’s going to double Kumble’s score. Just you wait.

London man back in town

Sorry. Sorry. I have been away.

Only yesterday, I was coughing and spluttering out the ghastly clean air of the country-side. I was in a remote cottage, with no access to life-giving cricket. Just me, the sheep and that bloody fresh air. Occasionally, a Range Rover would pass. I’d leap out of the house to inhale as much exhaust fumes as possible in the car’s wake.

It feels good to be back in London.

Fortunately, it seems as though I haven’t missed much. Shivnarine Chanderpaul is rapidly approaching deity-status, by scoring another century. One more and I think he’ll bump Alastair Cook off his spot.

Interestingly, Andrew Strauss remembered how to bat, by scoring 72 when all about him were losing their heads. A lot of people have been arguing that he should be dropped, on the rather dubious grounds of “getting back his form” on the county circuit. People that say this deserve a Chinese Burn.

Firstly, Strauss is in form. He scored a century the last LVCC match he played for Middlesex. Secondly, it’s exactly this sort of “in-out” attitude to player selection that caused England to squander its talents in the 1990s. Stick with him. He’s going to be the next captain. Let him ride out the difficulties at the highest level. He’ll be even more brilliant at the end of it. Promise.

In other news, Ryan Hairybottom captured five wickets. He may even be pushing Monty for the most wickets at the moment. I don’t know. I can’t really be bothered to look up those sorts of things.

I’m a busy Londoner.

Day one, Old Knackered: No streakers yet

So busy, was I, complaining about the weather and being bitter I forgot there was a test match on. Speculatively firing up the computer, to have a quiet browse of the cricket sites, I was bowled over by news of Alastair Cook's half century.

I didn't see that coming. It's troubling times when international cricket does not consume your life.

The next England captain, Andrew Strauss, is beginning to cause real worries for the future, by failing to score again. If Straussy loses form, who will take over from Michael Vaughan now? It must be Hoggy.

The most interesting aspect of this game so far is the inclusion of Fidel Edwards and throwing of a cap Darren Sammy’s way.

What you need to know is this: Edwards is fast, but a bit of a Harmison. Sammy is apparently a swing bowler, but is much like all the other blokes that failed previously, so much like a slower Harmison.

This may, or may not, be interesting.

Anyway, I’m going to stop writing now. The ill must not be made to suffer unless any of their lazy readers send in some cash. But they never do. Those lazy bastards.