Kiwis get all English on our asses

Well well. There I was. Rage flowing strong. Ready to launch into an angry tirade against England’s incompetents, and then New Zealand committed hari kiri.

These are scenes familar to followers of spineless English cricket across the world. It feels odd to watch New Zealand suffer a rather English fate.

They were ahead by about a jillion runs yesterday, and then the whole of New Zealand decided that they couldn’t be bothered.

They even gave Andrew Strauss a century.

There are rumours that Daniel Vettori gave his troops a bollocking, but, to be honest, the Kiwian captain was at the centre of every cock-up that unnecessarily turned the advantage towards England. Drop catches here; ridiculous run outs there; coupled with some pedestrian bowling, Frankie D’Vettori was looking like he fell off his filly before he's had chance to get his hands under the wire.

At the end, Paul Collingwood briefly changed his name to Genghis Khan, and smote the sheep herders without mercy to see The England home.

This is weird. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the pent-up aggression. I might expend it on Australia.

Sehwag is the brown tape of the sellotape world

Virender Sehwag scored 300 and everyone is excited. This was perhaps one of the best innings in the history of test cricket. Not only because of the fierce heat and the ferocious strokeplay, but because so many people had written off Sehwag only a few months again.

And like your finest roll of brown tape, Sehwag calmly and efficiently covered everything with his shiny and strong cellulose-based, pressure-sensitive adhesive tape. Got the job done. Unlike pretanders Wasim “Masking Tape” Jaffer or Rahul “Duct Tape” Rahul, who only managed faintly sticky half centuries to Sehwag’s gloriously adhesive triple ton.

This was taping at its best. Exhibition taping.

To hit so cleanly, whilst playing so dangerously, rocks my tiny world. I assumed that this sort of play was reserved for the “quick fifty”, but, oh no, the Master of Taping turned my world upside down.

They who would craft a large innings over a period of time, I’m looking at you The Wall, scored substantially less than the Mighty Sehwag. They scored the half-centuries, whereas the biffer racked up a monster.

This makes no sense to me. I shall need a sit down to cope with this whole episode.

Suave reckons that our Virender will go on an beat Lara’s record. You know what, he might just be right.

Windies defend their last international cricketer

After the ensuing insanity pants which resulted in the indefinite canning of Steve Bucknor, the West Indies Cricket Board have hit back.

Julian Hunte, WICB President, wrote an angry letter to the ICC.
He condemned the ditching of Bucknor as “extreme”. Not as in skate boarding on a collapsing glacier extreme, more planting daffodils next to snow drops extreme. Another irritated party in this happy episode of pisspoor public relations and insipid administration.

"There is no question that even the best umpires make mistakes. They are human and there are circumstances which may affect their judgement. What worries us is whether the action of the ICC in the case of Bucknor might create even more problems for the ICC and international cricket down the line."

The press has lapped up this ever-growing debacle. I noticed that it was page five in yesterday’s (London) Financial Times and page three news in the Guardian. This is no mean feat, in the context of American primaries, a collapsing Kenya and continued Pakistani bonkerness. Only cricket can cause such an international firestorm. One wonders whether it is a sport at all, and not some sort of geopolitical death match.

I heard Navjot Singh Sidhu give an interview on the radio last night. He pointed out that world create is “dependent” upon sub-continental revenues and, as such, “India rules the roost.” This means that India should get its way in all matters; racism be hanged. This, more or less, is exactly what happened.

The ICC, ever conscious bean-counters, trembled at the BBCI’s chest-beating, and caved in. Consequently, they have annoyed the West Indies, Australia and tacitly condoned racism.

Glad to see world cricket in splendid health.

What the hell is going on?

In an unexpected move, the world has reportedly “gone mad” today, with the collapsing in the laws of logic.

The integrity of reason first began to disintegrate in the final moments of the second test of the Australia/India series. In a suspicious series of events, Michael Clarke was awarded responsibility in knocking over the last three Indian batsmen with two remaining overs. He decided to stretch the tension, by single-handedly wrapping up the Indian innings in the last over of the match.

During the bad natured game, in which India placed a novel accusation at Australia’s door by calling them “cheats”, Harbhajan Singh allegedly racially abused Andrew Symonds. Mike Procter, the match referee, ruled at the end of a four-hour hearing that Harbhajan had breached Level 3 of the ICC's Code of Conduct. He was consequently served with a three-match ban.

In a mature move, the Indians accused Brad Hogg of “using offensive language” and another hearing is likely.

It was reported by the BBC this morning that, not only is the BCCI appealing against the verdict, but they are also pulling out of the remainder of the tour in protest. I was a little surprised. Hissy fits are not unknown in India, but this was a huge toy ejected from a gargantuan pram.

Now, the Indians claim that these were only “rumours” and that the tour is going ahead. Which means, it’s ok, because someone from the ICL collected the toy and sent it back from whence it came.

Whenever India do anything, really, anything at all, it will be imbued with bonkerness. Nothing seems to be straightforward over there. It’s like the PCB has stapled insanity pants permanently on them.

We could appoint a sensible coach – nah, we’ll pick some bloke who’s once coached his way to Durban. We’re above twenty20 – sod it, we’ll win the world championship. We could have a twenty20 tournament - oh wait, we’ll go mental and divide world cricket instead.

What the hell? WHAT THE HELL!