FACT. England are the most annoying side in the world.

Clearly we should all hate the English. They don’t have much going for them: bad food, bad teeth and now a successful Ian Bell.

The ultimate insult to the world.

Today, the legacy of the phrase “a Paul Collingwood-type” player has been secured for good. Ian Bell has become a Paul Collingwood-type player. He’s not as good as Collingwood, though, obviously he’s much better which makes Bell all the worse.

All-out attacking cricket may be glamorous, but saving a match from certain defeat should also be an achievement worthy of celebration.

I have long criticised Collingwood. He looks ugly and can cock-up at times. But who amongst us can honestly deny that they too are unsightly incompetents? But, for some reason, he keeps coming up with the goods. He's hard. And increasingly, England are becoming hard like him.

England can now justifiably categorise themselves as a side that is Hard To Beat. It doesn’t matter that South African are the better side, and should be 2-1 up in this series, England are a bunch of hard cases that will take a severe battering before they’ll yield.

But still, as an England fan, it’s hard to know how to view you team. It was tempting to scream around the office once the draw was drawn, but surely it’s within our rights to hate them for inflicting an entire day or stress and worry upon us?

Best to pick and choose. Hate KP. Love Strauss. Hate James Anderson. Love Graham Swann. Have a love/hate relationship with Ian Bell.

Or just stick to hating the Australians?

Ian Bell: will the mouse roar?

I doubt it.

Ian Bell has been various described as the “most talented batsman in the country”, “Atherton-esque” and “complete shit”. And his test match record raised more questions than Aunties.

The general consensus in the mono-glot press is that Bell only does well on milkruns. Much has been made of his centuries at six – all coming when more responsible players grafted 100s above him.

This may be right, and I have generally shared the view that Ian Bell looks most at home when he is at home.

The problem is that there really isn’t anyone of the same authority in the English game who can replace Kevin Pietersen. Bell’s extended and underperforming run at three crowded out any other player, and blocked the emergence of potential county stars. Where would we be had Ravi Bopara been giving a long run a year ago?

But we are where we are, and there is, at this moment, quite honestly no alternative to the rat-faced bimbo.

At the moment, the line-up is looking decidedly Atherton-esque alright. Strauss, Cook, Bopara, Bell, Paul Collingwood, and Pratty Prior. It’s a wonder that they didn’t bring John Crawley and Simon Jones out of retirement (and/or death).

Although, Australia’s attack also finds itself competing against England’s former stars. Could Peter Siddle out-bowl Gavin Hamilton? Could Mitchell Johnson out-long-hop Chris Schofield?

Such questions might give England’s tart at number four new hope.

Paul Collingwood shaving

Days have passed. An embryonic beard is growing: An unwanted fuzz forming like a rampant fungus creeps around the neck and face. Although little facial fur has been accumulated, Paul Collingwood sends himself in on the fifth day down to save his face from another hairy situation.

Plodding forth to the bathroom, he steels himself with his trusty, plastic reusable razor bought from Woolworths. Facing a revelation of orange before him, a rare moment of confidence surges forward, and he twiddles his weapon with an enigmatic flourish.

After picking up the razor from the floor, the former and current England captain begins the task before him: the steady construction of a respectable appearance.

Beginning, as is his habit, from the bottom, he worked over the entire field of play up to the eyebrows. As he takes the vorpal blade in hand, the weight of responsibility and expectation becomes too much.

He struggles early on, losing all semblance of technique. Pressure guides his every fumble. A lesser man would have crumbled at the accidentally hacking away of the bridge of his nose, but the redoubtable Collingwood gritted onwards and upwards. Onwards and upwards.

Throughout the mist of pain and self-doubt, Collingwood found motivation in the peaceful sound of progress: the sink’s echoing plops as it harvested the falling fibers, foam and flesh. He considered pass glories. His daily facial flagellation at his work experience week at Northern Rock. The unexpected electric razor discovered in Australia. The destruction of the Inadvisable Moustache.

After the blood began to clear away, Collingwood began to rebuild his confidence with a series of short, stubby strokes. Slowly revealing the tea-hued pallor beneath the ginger grizzle, as he roughly nurdled away at the persistent bristles.

In the end, as Collingwood stared deeply into the mirrored image of cuts, gore and pus, he reflected on the past three-hours of graft. Oh course, he wasn’t pretty, even his mother admitted that to him, but he was effective and he got the job done. Perhaps he faces the word as less of a man, but a least he's a man. And, at the end of the day, it’s not how, it’s how many useless ginger sproutings you cut away.

England finally reach the Bell End

It took a lot of hinting, cajoling and physical coercing, but the England selections finally gave in to our desires, to show that they know what to do with heads, and satisfying released exactly what we all want to see: a white paper of real substance.

Although, in its usual desperate search for branding with which it could use to “sell” to the “media”, England’s line-up has already been branded as the “new face”, the “future” on our happy march towards the “next era”.

A completely novel era where the bits and pieces player that doesn’t really excel at anything have been given central importance. Let’s look at England new vanguard:

Ravi Bopara – bats a bit, apparently bowls, but the ECB FORBIDS him from doing so.
Paul Collingwood – see above.
Tim Bresnan – although his medium pacers aren’t good enough for international level, he bats a bit, so that’s ok.
Stuart Broad – see above.
Graeme Swann – see above (ish).
Matt Prior – his keeping is rubbish, but…

In fact, the only players that actually appear to be good at anything are Andrew Strauss (whose seems to be alright at batting at the moment) and KP (whose brilliant mind games have surely won England at least eight matches in the past).

It’s as though the Englanders looked at New Zealand and collective thought “oh yeah, that’s where we’ve been going wrong – let’s pick the crap players.”

Ah well. Spare a thought for Michael Vaughan though – his chances were smote by the Yorkshire weather. Not for the first time has a promising career been suppressed by Northern precipitation.

Welcome to the defensive era, where we succumb the Ashes before it begins and seem to be meekly comply with the Australians demands for whatever debauched designs they have for us. It’ll be all over our faces before long. And I’m telling you, knowing Australians, it won’t be very long at all.

Paul Collingwood, the little brown that could

Paul Collingwood. Can you believe this man? Can you believe that this ginger Northerner, so handicapped at birth, can go so far in the real world?

Of course, as an exponent of treading water myself, I admire his grim refusal to do anything beyond the bare minimum. He doesn’t so much as force his way into the side, but refuse to be flushed away. When the ECB pulls the chain, some items are dispatched merrily into the water network, on their long journey through the Thames, and then Bognor Regis beach, Ian Bell and Monty Panesar for instance, but Collingwood just seems too stouty and the wrong shape for the pipes to boot.

Where most people would be a bit concerned about this situation, we’ve got some Australians coming over soon and they sure can pack a lot down there, and might consider breaking apart the offending remainder with some sort of stick, or your big sister’s toothbrush, the ECB seemed stunned by the awesome sight of persistence that floats before them.

The ECB likes Collingwood. He’s ginger, and has a red face. What’s not to like?

But the problem is that he bats like a one-legged pirate with a Geoff Boycott fetish. Never once, not even during his Australia tour, have I watched him bat and thought, “he looks in good form” or even a “that shot wasn’t remotely unattractive, I don’t want to gauge out my eyes with the sure cringing awfulness of this innings, OMG!!!1!”

I’d rather witness the true time line of six thousand years of history unfold than endure that any more.

So, once again, out of the jaws of certain dropdom, he flukes a century in the most benign conditions imaginable, and looks certain to keep other, good, players out of the side.

Flan-effin-tastic.

There’s no pleasing some people.

Dammit. Why can’t we have some more middle order sloggers? Or any sloggers, for that matter. What's wrong with the world, all the grit is in the England cricket team, leaving bugger all for the ice-covered streets.

England will never recover - Collingwood

Former England captain that used to be good, Paul Collingwood, stated yesterday:

"We're rubbish. Might as well pack it all in. England's finished"

Collingwood annoys and delights Englanders in equal measure

I have been very busy working recently. To the point where I bought a new weekly travel card this morning. It was only £85.10. As old card was being replaced with old, there was some sleepy confusion.

Resulting in one pass being flung into a large dustbin on Fenchurch Street. As I got onto a bus into work, I realised I was left with an expired travel card.

If I was a bigger man, I would have killed the nearest stranger.

But, in any case, such was my busyness, I haven’t had opportunity to keep up with the third test between England and South Africa. Apparently, Andrew Flintoff has been bowling well.

Worse still, I heard this morning that Paul Collingwood has scored a century. The Ginger Scratcher was put down as “A Drop” in AYALAC HQ. “We need to bring in another South African” thought I.

Now, he’s only gone and blown the “new era” of England cricket. What are we going to do now?

It ruins everything.

Jacques Rudolph, Dale Benkenstein, Brian McMillan, all those players than people are calling to be brought into the England set-up, will now have to wait that extra bit longer.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Collingwood. He’s one of my favourites. I just think England’s test team would be better off without him. Now it’ll be another five months until I can say that without sounding like a total bastard.

One dayers, briefly, get fantastic

I missed a key issue in yesterday’s ODI between England and New Zealand.

Of course, there was the whole “I am a right twat, me” thing with Paul Collingwood. In case you didn’t hear: a Kiwi runner was downed by an England bowler, resulting in his losing his verticality, the use of the left side of his body and his wicket.

Of course, it was a hilarious incident, especially when the full extent of his injuries was revealed, but it displayed a rather unseemly element to the England captain’s game.

Despite the fact that the umpire repeatedly asked if Collingwood would like to withdraw his appeal, he claims that it was a “split second decision”. We claimed he was a twat.

In fairness, it probably was an unthinking moment of stupidity, where any appeals to reason by the umpire were drowned up by the cricketer’s usual ridiculously high levels of elation after taking a wicket.

You might say that this distinguishes international players from international captains, and that Collingwood isn’t really captaincy material. You might say something different.

In any case, the key moment of this match was just after the last ball, when the New Zealand captain lost it completely. After the Kiwis one he did this:

Leap around like a maddy, pointing at the English.

And he said this:

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you all!” at the English.

Oh, how I wish I could have seen it. Oh, how I wish all teams could do that after winning. The MCC should put it in the rules.

That a professional sportsman can sink to the level of a jeering darts player, after winning his local pub’s drunken competition against his ex-wife gives hope to us all.

Collingwood: we can’t sing. Shit.

Paul Collingwood, the inspiration of England, said in an interview recently,

“When we’re on song, we’re on song.”

So, we can only suppose in their latest slump against New Zealand that they weren’t on song, because it didn’t look like they were on song at all.

Tunelessness seemed to affect all elements of England’s game. Their batsman, although promising, failed to capitalise. Their bowlers, although tight, failed to prevent release. Their fielders, although pisspoor, failed to be any less pisspoor.

New Zealand, held themselves together like the grown ups that they are, and deservedly won on the last ball. Weirdly, even though they weren’t on song, they were a bit on song. Perhaps, if not totally on song, they were a bit singy.

Like Bjork sings a bit, in between her deranged hamster wails.

Predictably, I was disappointed by Collingwood’s rather wankish decision to injure one of the Kiwi runners and then insist on running him out. Being a bit of an old fart, I rather feel that that sort of thing isn’t cricket. But I have a feeling that I’m just not on song today.

La la la burp.

No. No, it’s just not happening. Maybe tomorrow?

New Zealand’s South Africans beat England's South Africans

The English selectors came under further pressure today, as their radical policy of not fielding an all South African eleven against New Zealand resulted in another loss for the “English”.

Sensing weakness, the Kiwis picked a little known Saffer by the name of Bruce Lee. After making a bang at club level, Brucie forced his way into the New Zealand outfit through his undeniably South African qualities.

He scored the only fifty in England’s latest spineless defeat in Bristol, and also returned bowling figures of 2-9.

Requiring only 183 to win, England took pity on the weenie Kiwis. “Oh, they’re only small; let’s give them a few wickets.”

But like the relentlessly biscuit eating aunties in my family, if you give them an inch they’ll take the whole bloody packet. As the overs ticked away, England were rapidly running out of South Africans, and somehow converted certain victory into hilarious defeat.

Interestingly, this is probably one of the few occasions were the qualities of the captain were revealed. The English captain really showed his ginger nuts, by electing to bowl harmless dibbly-dobblers for twenty bland overs to allow the Black Hearts off the hook and let them build a defendable total.

Daniel Vettori, on the other hand, was like Nelson at Trafalgar, like Wellington at Waterloo and like Gordon Brown at the 42-day vote: amongst the chaos and impending doom, his magisterial and prudent figure saved his nation from total and immediate destruction.

Unlike the French President. Not only is he French and married to a woman that only wears socks, but has charged the responsibility of the “death of African children” at the feet of Peter Mandleson – the British Commissioner to the EU. Although this might be right, there’s a way to do these things, Sarko: you have to do it in a picket whilst your followers sing the red flag and smash up Paris.

They just have no idea over there, do they?

England not English

If there was one aspect of the game that the English excelled at, it was losing gracefully. There was no moaning about biased umpires, not blaming the pitch, and not (much) complaining about injuries.

We were simply inferior people and we accepted that.

Occasionally, we could hope for a plucky, match-saving rear-guard by a brave tail-ender: grinding a draw out of an angry opposition. We took pride in our sportsmanship.

Not in our latest game against the Kiwis. In a shoddy and rather Australian display, England delayed the match’s progress at every opportunity to ensure the eventual abandonment of the rain affecting game.

Paul Collingwood has blamed the game.

“Cricket has nothing to do with sportsmanship or spirit. It’s about gingers leading men into battle. We should probably change the rules. Only red-haired captains allowed.”

In response, the New Zealand captain, Daniel Vettori, said,

“Does my bum look big in this?”

It is uncertain which country feels more shame towards their captain. I’m guessing South Africa.

Collingwood: worth a question mark?

Paul Collingwood, perhaps the ugliest batsmen in test cricket, is struggling to retain his place.

“Why is he still there?” people ask. People say lot of things though. Some of them say Birmingham’s pretty. I tend to ignore people.

Instead, let’s take a fact. Facts rarely say Birmingham is nice in any way. Paul Collingwood averages 34 in 2008. Overall, he averages over forty. Frankly, how he maintains this standard I have no idea. But the trend is downward.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Collingwood. There are not enough gingers in authority in this world.

But we’ve never seen an innings by him when he isn’t scratching around like a disabled pigeon.

Watching his batting like experiencing severe constipation after a heavy night’s necking laxatives.

His nurdling, nudging and implacable defence have got England out of many holes in the past. He’s one of “those” batsmen that specialise in the sort of innings that the Alan Stanfords in the world really don’t understand.

Generally, AYALAC approves of maintaining anything constituting a two-fingers to that moneyed yank. But, in this case, I might hold forth on my anti-Stanfordish bile.

So, I’ll keep an eye on Collingwood. It seems as though we’ve given up bowling him at test matches so, stunning fielding aside, his retention in the side relies solely on his batting performance.

Clearly, there are more handsome batsmen out there, but are there more productive alternatives, too?

I say: Birmingham’s rubbish.

Bored of watching England lose?

Feel the weight of the world on your shoulders? Depressed by the constant failure of those around you? Ginger?

Un-wind, relax and go to a strip-club on your own. It is the only way that you can take your mind of the relentless hum of defeat.

An incredible happening

Today, I met Paul Collingwood. I had an in-the-flesh experience with the England one-day captain. This is the most amazing thing that ever has, or will ever, happen to me.

Well… I say, “met”. I meant, of course, walking past him, or a man who looks just like him in a public place. The eye-contact was one-way.

Funnily enough, it happened today in London’s Tower Hill Station, not in Durham. I was mumbling under my breath about annoying tourists, shoving my ticket into the barrier machine and there He was. He was walking in the opposite direction, in full England track-suit.

He is surprisingly tall, and doesn’t really look at all like my dad.

Sadly, the pressures of London commuting are such that I didn’t have time to worship his beautiful all-round feet. As soon as I saw the Great Man, he was gone. He was just a blip in the crowd.

I was rather hoping that the aura of his inspirational leadership would rub off on me. It didn’t; the whole journey was a nightmare. It was a long and gritty affair, and it was certainly not pretty. Despite the scrappiness, I got there in the end.

You can read a jolly interesting history of Tower Hill Station here. I’ll notify the authors of this historical event so they can add it to their account.

The new England captain in profile

This is the face of the new England one-day captain. He’s the one that looks like a sports physiotherapist. Let us analyse the image of Paul Collingwood.

The first thing you will notice about Collingwood is that he looks alarmingly like my dad. The first give away is the skin. It has two colours: white and red. Notice its total inability to deal with sweltering temperatures above 10 degrees. When it’s warm, his entire body turns bright red. When it’s a moderate, it returns to it’s usual Durham pale.

Despite this, he always complains about the cold. And how he wished he lived in a really hot country, like Denmark or Luxembourg. There’s just no winning with these people.







The next similarity is the hair. Like an orange flame, it gives him super-human powers. He achieves things that you would think are beyond a man of his age. I’ve chucked in a picture of my dad playing football here to show you the uncanny similarity.




Of course, sometimes they can over-estimate their ability. Here’s Collingwood flat-out after running into a lamp-post. It’s a familiar sight to The Atheist’s Christmas celebrations. Happy days.







Lastly, the most striking thing you will notice about the newly-appointed England captain is that he doesn’t look anything like this man. Which, I think, is a major weakness in any leader.



Here’s another shot from The Atheist’s last Christmas. We might have got the “beached whale” section of charades. Either that or the Queen’s Speech is on.

West Indies bowl moderately better

Whenever England go out to get, I have this feeling that Paul “Colly” Collingwood is a game away from being dropped. Somehow, he stays in. That’s the magic of Collingwood: the Adhesive Ginger. But yesterday he, and the rest of the middle order, became unstuck.

Ian “Belly” Bell did well to rescue the side from a potentially disastrous collapse. He was still there at the end of the day’s play, with 77. He put on 98 for the fifth wicket with Matt “Priory” Prior, the skinhead wicket keeper contributing 40.

There’s something of the flat-track bully about Prior. Most county attacks have more venom than these Windies, and the South African born Sussex man with two legs has taken every opportunity to strike. It will be interesting to see how well he does against sides with quality attacks, like Glamorgan.

His downfall may have been his partner’s fault. In a period of studied strike-farming, Prior faced only six balls in the seven preceding overs prior to his demise. After scoring a four, he attempted a daft shot and was caught in the deep. Was this because of self-inflicted pressure? Did Bello not rotate the strike? No one cares. All we want to see is another Belly century at number six.

Do I have anything else to say? No.

Nothing else.

Competency testing England's captains

There has been a lot of discussion about the England captaincy, with the usual focus on the form of the captain fuelling the fire. Michael Vaughan’s one-day form has been unimpressive, with an average of only 20-odd, his place in the batting line-up has been a free wicket for opponents. Does this mean we should sack him? Well, no, I don’t think so.

The Ayalac minions have busily worked out criteria that could provide a competency test of the England role.

Scores will be given, out of ten in the following fields:

• Performance in tests.
• Performances in ODIs. All three disciplines are taken into account.
• Tactical awareness. Comprising innovation and nouse.
• Authority/leadership skills.
• Media management: how they deal with the press (out of five).
• Insight: what they say to the press (out of five).

Results

Player	Tests	ODIs	Tactical	Authority	MM	Insight	Total/50
Vaughan	8	4	8	8	4	4	36
Collingwood	6	7	5	6	4	3	31
Strauss	7	5	7	7	3	4	33
Bell	7	6	4	4	1	1	23
Flintoff	8	8	5	7	2	2	32
Pieterson	9	9	4	7	4	1	34
Bopara	0	6	4	3	0	0	13

These are some names that have been suggested for the job – I’ve also thrown in Kevin Pieterson because I have, in mad moments, pondered such a possibility. Judging by these numbers, he might be one to watch, too.

Strangely, and despite the heavy performance weighting, Vaughan comes out on top. This happens to the outcome that out-going coach, Duncan Fletcher, also favours. And in the terms of achieving stability and continuity in a notoriously unsettled role, this might not be a bad thing.

I would also suggest that England, if they are to change a captain, to do so in both versions of the game. England tried the two captains route a while ago: Michael Atherton took charge of the test team and Adam Holioke led the one-day side. It was a disaster. No one knew what was going on, and created further instability in the squad.

So, with this in mind, and the results of my scientific survey, it’s probably best to stick with Vaughan for another year or so. He’s a pretty good bowler, too. Keep him as an all-rounder. Stick in at number seven. No problem!

England look alright, but not great, you know?

England beat Ireland by 48 runs. So well done. Some people don't think this is good enough. But, considering their"go slow" strategy, they're never going to whallop the minnows in the way Australia do. We can only hope they can grit it out agains the good teams.

I haven't spoken much about England. It's all been a bit depressing, really. I suppose I should talk about them at least once. Just in case they win. England put on an OK score, thanks, in the main, to that bloke with the bat on the left. Again, the top order failed, again Kevin Pieterson got in and got out, and again Paul Collingwood saved the team from certain embarrassment.

Trent Johnston, the stately Ireland captain, stated, “We spoke about Paul Collingwood in the team meeting before the game and he is the quality player in England’s team”. See that? The quality player. Never mind Pieterson or Andrew Flintoff, they’re afraid of Colly.

Johnston goes on: “He’s the guy that gets you a run-a-ball hundred and gets you three or four wickets [I’m not sure about that part]. He’s also their best fielder in the team too so we expected him to come out and do that and he did.” I’m not really sure what that last bit means, but I suppose living in Ireland for so long has got to rub off, doesn’t it?

Collingwood has now become England’s only hope with the bat. The rest aren’t firing at all. KP, despite his new number one status, hasn’t impressed during the tournament so far. And this go-slow business is making the rest of the line-up look pedestrian and distinctly unthreatening. So, essentially, we’re dependent on one man. And he’s a ginger Northerner. Prospects have never looked so good for the England team.

However things aren‘t all bad. Paul Nixon also chipped in with 19 off 15. A lot of people don’t like Nixon. Principally because he’s a gobby irritant of a man, but also because, they claim, he’s not very good. However, I think he’s alright. He averages 18.8 in ODIs, with a strike rate of 86. In addition, he averages 32 in first class cricket, striking 16 hundreds. He is also the most experienced man in the world when it comes to twenty20. This is exactly the sort of thing you need at the death: quick, irresponsible runs, boundaries, speedy running and annoying the elbows off the opposition. This combination of fast runs and being an arse is working for the England team. Although, his keeping isn’t great, but that has never seemed to be an issue in the past.

Also, what on Earth is going on with Ravi Bopara? Apparently, he is being picked because he is an all-rounder. Yet he didn’t bowl a ball, but came in at number eight. What? You’re picking a batsman for the number eight spot? Whereas Michael Vaughan seems to have become a bowling all-rounder, bowling nine tight overs and taking a wicket. Surely, if you wanted to play this game you could stick Andrew Strauss in at one, and put Vaughan in at eight. Maybe you could promote young Bopara to smash some quick runs opening the batting? Sadly, this is probably a little too creative for the ECB. Damn their pants.

Lastly, did anyone notice how cheerless Flintoff looked? Not a smile throughout the whole occasion. Normally, I quite approve of people moping about and depressing everyone, but even poor old Monty received the cold shoulder. After Flintoff caught a skier off Panesar’s bowling, Monty leaped and twirled about, as he does, beaming at Flintoff. The all-rounder, as the commentator described it, was nonplussed. Monty looked embarrassed, and shuffled off, deflated. How could anyone do that to the Monster? That’s almost cruel. Defusing the joyous heart of the young lad can almost be considered a crime against humanity. I’m starting to like Flintoff less and less. Here’s another picture of him looking gloomy.

Miserable sod.

Monty: says the right things

In a recent interview, Monty Panesar has said that although Michael Vaughan is very important to the team, Andrew Flintoff will be just as good. The justification being:

"Michael Vaughan likes everyone to be captain out on the field"

So, it doesn’t really matter who is captain, as Vaughan has ingrained leadership onto the entire team. Apparently, the best test of a manager (in the business world) is someone whose loss isn’t noticed, as they have created a stand-alone, functioning outfit that doesn't require mirco-management or constant crisis control. Presumably, Vaughan has constructed a similar framework. Anyway, Monty goes on.

"He's got a lot of experience and led England to an Ashes win. He's very excited about going to the World Cup and it's great to have him.”

Vaughan is good.

"But if Andrew Flintoff replaces him then we are still in a very good position because he's a very good captain who leads from the front. Andrew is an inspiration on and off the field."

But Flintoff is also good.

A fine piece of PR: he said the right things and didn’t put his foot in it. And complied with the normal rules of remaining blindly positive, humble and open. I am wondering whether the spinning superstar might be taking over from Paul Collingwood’s media duties. If so, this paradigm shift would certainly make him into a multi-dimensional cricketer, who is well-adjusted to the information economy and human resourcing through a sustainable holistic synergy strategy.

Collingwood: We will win the Noble Peace Price

Here are some remarks by Colly “Paul Collingwood” Coleslaw, regarding England’s chances at the World Cup:

“We hope we can take that kind of form and the momentum from the last four games into the World Cup – and we hope we’ll go a long way. We hope we’ve peaked at the right time.”

He went on to say: “Sod it. We’re unstoppable. I’ll have that trophy, next to my MBE medal, on m’mantelpiece before long, man.”

OK – I may have used some tricks from political journalism there, but I think we all know what he’s getting at. Because England have demonstrated that it is possible to win a match, they’re certain to win the World Cup.

This may be true, but I’m more interested in Colly’s constant use as England PR man. His prolific output is almost McGrathian. For instance, scoring a double hundred gave him a "great feeling"; England are good at “fighting back”; Shane Warne would be a handy addition to the back-room team, etc. Throughout the many crushing defeats he was always there to note that it wasn't all lost yet. Until it was. But he still didn't shut up.

However, he did produce one very illuminating comment to the Metro the other day, saying that Michael Vaughan had brought “calm” to the outfit. Suggesting that a previously positive team were in a state of panic. The spirit of the team was never mentioned publicly and, I suspect, privately either. If the England team had acknowledged these feelings of inadequacy, they may have moved on from them. Instead, the platitudinous wittering about “taking positives out of a loss” were counter-productive. We need to be honest and embrace our lameness. Collingwood builds “knowing his limitations” into his game – why can’t England do the same and start talking sense?