The drama of South African domestic cricket

The modern world, as we will all no doubt readily acknowledge, is generally a rather rubbish place. Not only is it showing obvious signs of “going down the pan” (as it has for some millennia now) but, in the words of the great Ed Reardon, it is also run by 12 year olds.

No where is this more apparent that the domestic scene in South Africa. According to the singularity of all knowledge, cricinfo, there are two matches going on in Safferdom. They are:

Dolphins v Cobras
Warriors v Eagles

These two matches, I feel, have been unfairly neglected by the mainstream press. Surely, we are all interested to discover who would win in a fight between poisonous snakes and an angry pod of Delphinidae.

I suppose, as with all matches, the outcome much depends on the conditions. If played on the dry, arid pitches familiar to cobras, the dolphins, for all their superiority in size, would probably be picked off by the snakes after an attritional spell.

Conversely, if the dolphins play at home, then the cobras had better hope for a quick, decisive bite, or they’ll be all at sea.

Now, if they play at some neutral venue, like Bognor Regis beach, for instance, they’ll be on a level playing field. Leaving the cobras in a strong defensive position, but also allowing the dolphins some opportunity to attack with the tide.

Nevertheless, I would still put my money on the snake, that Flipper was fucking useless.

The second match is between eagles and warriors. What they mean by “warriors” is unclear – but I’m guessing they’re either a group of Ultimate Warriors, or some sort of deranged gaggle of Klingons.

The eagles have the advantage of good flight, but once the warriors get ahold of them, it’ll probably be a quick dash to the finish. The birds have to hope that they can baffle the men with a few clever sledges to confuse their enemy’s simple mind, and peck them into submission.

All these exciting events are going on, and the liberal establishment refuse to report on it.

In any case, kudos to the Dolphins for opening the bowling with Sanath Jayasuriya.

Graham Pooch

There once was an animal that attracted so many Google hits, that his shameless creator couldn’t help but capitalise on the surprisingly viral market. Today we look at the life and works of Graham Pooch.

As a young pup he learnt his trade in the Kent Kennels.

He developed a reputation for a tough, dogged approach, which won him favour with the local top dogs.

He was eventually selected for the English Shepdogs. First, he was sent in for night-watch duty, but he began in paw form.

Later, he enjoyed the many runs and walks that came his way. He was insatiable – like a dog with a bone. This was rewarded with his elevation to leader of the pack, a position in which he used to expunge cattish players.

Now he is an old dog, relegated to sniffing around the fringes. But his bark is worse than his bite as he is liable to bite off more than he can chew.

Hoggy for Cappy

England’s knee-jerk efficiency is far too difficult to keep up with these days. They have already appointed their best twat to lead the team in both formats.

KP, the Greg Rusedski of the England team, was shockingly elected ahead of Matthew Hoggard.

Pre-empting Englishers' Sunday apathy, they tried to prevent a national Hoggard For Captain movement, by imposing a foreigner as king. It’s rather like the Glorious Revolution, only with less style.

Although bringing back the ruff for England’s ODI kit wouldn’t be a bad thing. They'd probably look more normal than in their whites.

So, seeing as the ECB are being a pack of right old bastards, I have no qualms in retrospectively re-launching a Hoggard For Captain campaign.

That he cannot get into the side is an irrelevance. Look at Michael Vaughan. He should be brought in as a specialist captain, and perhaps promoted to number three to sure-up the upper order.

So I urge you all, with every ounce of your misdirected energies, with all the distracted motivation that you can muster, to send the following letter to the ECB.

Dear England,

Please can you sack Kevin Pietersen and install Matthew Hoggard to his rightful position as England captain. It is not too late to change your mind. Big men admit when they’re wrong. Look at Darrell Hair.

You wouldn’t want to be like him now, would you?

There are numerous reasons why you should select the Yorkshire Destroyer as captain. He is one of the most capped men in the country. His cricketing head is truly unparalleled. His ability to play a captain's innings has been proven time and time again.

Another advantage is that he’s English. One more might be that he’s not Kevin Pietersen.

Please comply with my wishes. The ECB is funded by the Government through MY tax money (although, for tax reasons, I actually live in Greenland) so it is only my democratic right to issue authoritarian decrees to the national cricket team.

Yours in hope,

NAME (YOURS)

Send that to feedback@ecb.co.uk. Let me know if you get any responses.

News just in: Pietersen has promised to mould the England team in his own image.

God help us all.

Guest Blog: Baby-Faced Broad is the perfect role model

Stuart Broad, not content with sending mothers everywhere into raptures, is to turn his attention to their cricket-playing sons. This ‘nice-looking young man’, as my gooey-eyed mater insists on calling him, is the ECB’s top choice to front a campaign against abuse in recreational and youth cricket.

Broad is ‘just the sort of role model we need’, according to an ECB official, echoing my mother’s view that Broad is indeed ‘a man you’d be happy for your daughter to bring home’.

While Broad clearly holds some sort of hypnotic power over womankind, whether he can exert his influence over the present generation of unruly young cricketers remains to be seen. Abuse is now widespread in the modern game, both at professional, amateur and youth level. While instances of abuse or dissent amongst international cricketers are justifiably clamped down upon, in village or youth cricket umpires have little power to punish offenders.

For example, last season my local side was forced to lodge an official complaint against another village team, after the sledging in a rather high-spirited game began to feel more like racial abuse. After a lengthy, bureaucratic and time-consuming process the offenders were eventually punished, but during the game itself the umpires had been powerless to halt the abuse. Admittedly this is anecdotal evidence, but the word on the street is that this sort of thing, despite ‘not really being cricket’, is becoming increasingly common, particularly among younger teams. Clearly umpires need more power to stop such behaviour in its tracks.

The ECB’s solution, The Guardian reports, is that ‘this summer a system of yellow cards is being secretly trialled at three private schools’. (Quite how this trial can be said to be secret, now that its existence has been publicised in a national newspaper, is a question that the article does not get round to addressing.)

Personally, I find the whole yellow card idea quite ridiculous. Just imagine the scenes that could be taking place on a public school playing field near you this summer:

‘Oh I say, how’s that, umpire?’
‘Not out.’
‘But I jolly well heard a nick.’
‘You may well have done, young Faux-Bowyer. But what matters in this case is that I did not. The decision remains not out, and nothing you can do or say shall induce me to raise my finger.’
‘You absolute rotter!’
‘That, young man, is dissent. You have just earned yourself a yellow card, not to mention a week of detentions.’

All this seems a far cry from the cosy fictional world of everyone’s favourite public schoolboy cricketer, J C T Jennings. (If you’ve never heard of him, then I apologise. You must have suffered a terribly deprived childhood.) I seem to recall Jennings and Darbishire receiving nothing more than a mild ticking off after cutting Latin in order to watch a local game. These days their actions would no doubt earn them both a red card and a three-match suspension.

Now, I know the Jennings stories weren’t actually real, but nevertheless I still believe that there was indeed a time, probably nestled somewhere between the two world wars, when boys knew how to behave, and such things as yellow cards were considered unseemly. Whatever happened to The Spirit of Cricket? I just pray that Stuart Broad can resuscitate it before it is too late.

If standards of behaviour have indeed so degenerated that a system of yellow cards is deemed necessary, then cricket will truly have sunk to a new low. Why, we’ll be little better than footballers! I’m pinning my hopes on baby-faced Broad. That nice young man may well turn out to be a Jennings for our time.

England: useless like a dead monkey

Here’s a picture of an expired monkey I found near my house. I think you’ll agree that its similarity to the England cricket team is striking.

In their latest rout, they decided to adopt the “South African” strategy by dropping their best player. Dimitri Mascarenhas was left out in favour of Ravi Bopara.

Bopara is a nice young lad who has “a lot of potential”. Dimitri is a devastating player who can win matches with both bat and ball.

Mascarenhas is one of those weird county players that make you wonder what exactly is going on with the world. On the face of it, the Dimler doesn’t have any obvious talent. He bats at about seven and bowls ordinary looking medium pacers.

But, every so often, his batting explodes into a run-fest. Even more interestingly, his bowling is capable of Keeping The Runs Down and even taking a few wickets here and there. Notwithstanding the fact that he’s in New Zealand, the home of the medium pace trundler.

Bopara’s bowling is never really used and, at that stage of the innings, you would rather an experienced, weird-looking head to come in. Someone like Mascarenhas.

In any case, whether he was in the side, he wouldn’t have affected the outcome of this match. It was rank incompetence from top to bottom. It was like watching Bangladesh. Or, worse still, England in the 1990s.

However, our kebab-loving, pint-consuming, telly-watching, dog-betting, bowl-licking friend Jesse Ryder got some runs. Hopefully, that will secure his spot for the Kiwians tour of England.

Bangladesh as useless as a washed up duck

Bangladesh lost to New Zealand by an innings and a million runs. It was an effortless, easy, pitiless victory. Their performance reminded me of this duck. It had been washed ashore near my house. “Poor duck” thought I, imagine how the Kiwis felt.

Well, not too much happened in the international cricket world today. To be honest, I’m to be honest I’m too distracted by tomorrow’s* post. It’ll be a hum-dinger, and will doubtless blow your puny minds into still punier bits.

So, let’s go through the motions anyway:

West Indies, still disappointing.
Shaun Pollock, still good, even though he’s old enough to captain England’s rugby team.
New Zealand, still rubbish.
Bangladesh, still uber-rubbish.

All in all, it has been more of the same. Which is remarkable, when you come to think of it. The cricketing landscape hasn’t really changed in twenty years. Australia are still dominant. Pakistan/India/South Africa are competing for the Number Two status. And England occasionally spark into something that isn’t useless at all.

As an intentional sport, cricket is very small: with the “elite” countries numbering only eight. This said, the relationship between these teams have stable throughout the past two decades. Of course, the decline of the West Indies has been dramatic. But other than that, nothing has really happened.

Bangladesh has been granted the status of a test nation. Sri Lanka are pretty decent at the five-day stuff now. But there’s nothing else of note, is there?

That’s quite depressed me. I’ll go away and do more interesting things now. Be sure to tune in tomorrow. It’ll be more amazing than this post. Honestly.

*Hopefully.

Dead frog down

Here is a picture of a flattened frog on my road - I have come to know her as “Squashy” . She reminds of the West Indies cricket team. Not only is this frog dead, but it has been completely crushed.

Unaware of the forces that removed is from the third dimension, it has accepted its fate by laying back and submitting itself to devastating rolling over.

As you can see, the parallels between Squashy and the Windies’ current performance are stark. As noted previously, the West Indies were bowled out for just 139 and allowed South Africa to rack up 556 for four – with three Saffers notching centuries.

In reply, the Windies have just managed to scrape together a hundred runs for their three wickets. Two words: Pah thetic.

The team is welcome to use the deranged drivers on my road to help dispatch them in a dignified manner. They are useless. So at least they could transform themselves into street art. They could learn a few things from Squashy.

West Indies: All your dreams are dead

Well, I say “dead”, it would be more accurate to say “killed”. Borrowing catch-phrases from a fellow internet phenomenon aside, there was something cute about the resurgent West Indies.

Their recent success wasn’t an arrogant dispatching of the Saffers, but a boy’s own tale of team spirit and happy-go-lucky cricket. From this, the world wondered if they could resurrect their 1980s confidence. However, the South Africans effortlessly crushed all these hopes in Durban.

Disappointment is part of the Proteas’ natural game. Much like the Four Eyed Monsters film, which promised heart and quirky charm, but only delivered unendurable, introspective whining. Of course, South Africa don’t so much as whine the elbows off you, but rather, they gradually dismember your optimism, extract your joy for the world and leave your happiness a shrivelled, moist lump.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like this guy, I don’t hate South Africa. They’re not like Australia. It’s just that they’re beating the underdog, indeed, they’re slaying the puppies.

After bowling the Windies out for 132, South Africa finished the day on 213 for 1. Graeme “Smug Saffer Number Seven” Smith managed to biff his day into a rapid century.

Even the creaking and newly recalled Shaun Pollock eased to 4-35 from his 11 overs.

What this means is that the West Indies’ are back to where they were a few months ago: rubbish. OK – they’ve had a few injuries that denied that competitiveness. But, at this level, you have to have some depth in your squad. Depending on a handful of key men will lead to disaster.

I like towels.

The animals’ series

(This will probably be the last post for a while; I’ll be off for Christmas week – so no getting angry at me.)

Weather permitting, England can look forward to a solid day’s worth of forward defensives tomorrow. As I have mentioned many times, the negativity of playing for a draw is a great thrill to me. Rather like going to the toilet on a moving train, desperate rear-guards mix anxiety with excitement. “Will I get my trousers wet, or won’t I?”

England’s last innings was beyond a shambles. They transcend rubbish. They are meta-rubbish.

But enough of that, let’s have a cheery Christmas post.

The one winners of this series have been the animals. As previously reported on Ayalac, matches have been disrupted by dogs, snakes, bees and Matthew Hoggard.

Their enthusiasm for cricket should not be ignored. We should give them playing equipment and a chance to shine. Here is an England animal team:

Graham Pooch
*Len Mutton
Allan Lamb
Rob (Mon)Key
Phillip Pronghorn
Jonathan Trot
+Jack Russell
Graeme Swann
Jeremy Snake
Peter House Martin
Andrew Haddock

A good adversary for the Tigers, I think.

As a Christmas treat, here’s a video of my local Member of Parliament, showing the stateliness of his ancient position and value for my tax money.





You all have a lovely Christmas. Don’t get too depressed. Drink and eat too much, and I’ll see you on the other side. Cheerio!

England waylaid by bees

First the dogs attacked. Then the snakes. Now England are swarmed by killer bees.

Good.

England waylaid by cobras

England continue to be attacked by the wild-life of Sri Lanka. In their last tour, which, I understand, was about five minutes ago, I reported that England were badgered by gangs of feral dogs and hounded by killer pythons.

England’s return has heralded the re-emergence of Sri Lanka’s secret weapon: terrify the crap out of the touring opposition with beasties.

This is a tactic that Australia have successfully employed for many years. Most people erroneously believe that the Ausslers win at home because they are “better” or have wider bats. This is untrue.

Preceding every game, the touring party is harassed by a specialised animal team, which places scorpions into slippers, black widows in coffee and rare Australian Death Eels down the pyjama bottoms of sleeping tourists.

This campaign of using Australia’s weirdly dangerous fauna effectively destroys the nerves of the overseas squad and ensures test victories every time.

The ECB attempted this strategy in 1997, but the tourists got all excited at the “really cute” invading squirrels in the hotel rooms and increased the frequency of barbeques. It was later argued that this gave unnatural strength to touring squad and the mistake was never repeated.

Anyway, TMS, as ever keen to distract themselves from the cricket, took great pains to report in detail the “snake incident”. Apparently, there was a split within the party; Graeme Swann was convinced they were anacondas, whereas Matthew Hoggard was certain that they were just heavy drinking worms.

Here’s a TMS picture so you can judge for yourself:
Personally, I think it's a Plasticus Bottalias, which can be dangerous if you stand on them.