Bollocks to who? BOLLOCKS TO YOU!

This sites has been a bit overly sophisticated as late, so I need to dumb down and connect to the bland morass that is my readership.

So, today, I shall denounce certain cricketers that deserve to have a huge hairy Hungarian screaming “BOLLOCKS TO YOU MATEY” in their face.

So. Lets start.

Kevin Pietersen.



Pratty Mire

Darrel Hair.

Shoaib Akhtar.

The ICC in their entirety.

Although we are above drawing crude penises on top of players heads at the moment. We make no promises about the future.

Name That Bum #13: Answer

The answer to yesterday's Name That Bum was, of course, Dazzler Hair.

Well done to park, who won. Here's a portrait.

General smugness has indicated that Name That Bum is a bit too easy. Next week, it will be impossible.

Hair regrows

Darrell Hair, the man that we all thought was dead, but wasn’t really, is back. He’s going to stand in a test. You’ll notice this because the bottom of your telly will be obscured for half the match,

In his absence, the cricket pavilions have experienced an unexpected over-supply of cream cakes and Chelsea buns. It is hoped that the Australian adjudicator will restore the natural equilibrium of the world’s confectionary market.

Hair’s main problem, in the up-and-coming test, is how to be racist. Applying racism towards the English is difficult. Observe:

Racist: “Oi! Pommy bloke. You and your whole race are rubbish.”
Englander: “Yeah. I suppose we are.”
Racist: “Yeah. Well. You’re Queen is fat.”
Englander: “Spot on, old boy. Good Queen Porker, we call her.”

Similarly, being racist towards the New Zealanders is troublesome. It’s hard to draw the line between racism and stating the obvious.

I’m looking forward to some interesting decisions. Maybe he’ll demand that the entire side should run to tea early if one of the Kiwis asks to take guard. Or, more likely, his confidence has been punctured to the point that he lacks the courage to make those difficult decisions.

This is a pretty major event. Here’s how cricinfo reported it:

“One of the most significant moments of the Old Trafford Test will happen moments before the first ball is bowled. Darrell Hair will walk to one of the sets of stumps, either at the Stretford or Brian Statham End, and put the bails in place.”

As you can see, this is pretty sensational stuff.

Pakistan spring forth from India’s can of worms

The ensuing madness that India have created has emboldened the Pakistan Cricket Board to request the ridiculous: Overturn the forfeited test.

Never mind the fact that it is only a year and a half late and unnecessarily re-opening old wounds, it’s just a bit daft. Can any imagine a possible world where the ICC would reverse its own rulings? Perhaps the key change in context is that subcontinental sides feel they can bully the ICC to do anything.

Well done India. You’ve completely cocked up international cricket. Nice one.

At the heart of this ridiculous series of events is the unsportsmanlike pressure behind the scenes. The ICC succumbed to Pakistan’s insistence that the ball tampering charges were dropped. Yet, despite the lack of any novel evidence to suggest that there was no interference with the ball and Daryl Hair’s maintained status as a “pukka bloke” by the ICC, the accusation was dropped.

Just how pathetic, derisible and shit the ICC is begs belief. Could they not foresee by granting Pakistan this impossible request that the PCB would inevitably move to annul that test match? Now the ICC has admitted that Inzy was right to protest a decision – so the match was unfairly forfeited. So, the only logical course of action is to annul the test.

Even though no new evidence has emerged and the ICC still considers Hair a reliable arbiter.

The ICC: installing confidence through incompetence.

I'd like to take this opportunity to honour my great blogging friend, the most unwormlike and tolerably opinionated J-Rod. If I had a real, live, proper cricket team, I'd definitely make him the side's photographer. Some of his shots are stunning.

Oh no, they got Bucknor

Well, next victim in this elasticated rollercoaster of insanity pants is Steve Buckner. One of the most loved umpires in international cricket, Bucknor delighted millions by apparently doing nothing.

It takes a great man indeed to inspire such loyalty through sloth.

As well as his apathetic approach to the game, he also was a good judge. Never roused. Never riled. Never seemingly interested much in cricket. Weirdly, he was charismatic in his quiet way.

And now the sub-continental madness has subsumed this noble figure. Of course, Bucknor made a series of unfortunate mistakes; India bizarrely claim turned the match decisively in Australia’s favour, but we all have off days.

With Daryl Hair’s recent deposition, the infallibility of umpires’ is beginning to crumble. First, technology robbed them of their omniscience and now cocky players and have-a-go boards are stripping their omnipotence.

Cricket is a game that stands on respect: for the spirit and for its institutions. Australia did their bit by destroying the spirit, and now the sub-continental teams and steadily undermining its institutions.

Cricket is supposed to be aloof to petty concerns about minor events and “winning” – it is about conducting yourself in a gentlemanly manner. Now all we have left is high political intrigue in the ICC and Shane Warne’s marriages.

Perhaps the Empire was wrong to export it? Damned natives can’t be trusted with it.

Don’t get Hairy on me

I wish that headline made sense. I really do.

Anyway, Darrell Hair has come out to defend his bonkerness. Not only did he single-handedly ruin a test match, but when the ICC questioned his seriously questionable judgement, he decided to sue them. He lost that.

He also called Murali a chucker. He has frequently been nasty to sub-continental sides. To the point that sub-continental types began calling him racist. Although, every is racist these days. Even Nelson Mandela. Wait, especially Nelson Mandela.

Anyway, Hair is hated by all. And he’s fat.

To amend this ogre’s image, he has said in a recent interview,

"It's easy to say, look, if I'd known how to deal with that sort of issue, the communication and management issues then, if I knew then what I know now I may have done things differently.

But I don't believe so because there's a certain limit to what the umpire needs to do under those circumstances and I believe that both the umpires fulfilled those obligations both with the ball tampering and the refusal to play.”

He did come to a deal with the ICC to go to “man management” courses, and it is clear that he’s still open to learn and took on board a lot of things from attending.

Hilariously, he went on to contend:

"A lot of people have said to me you must be really annoyed with cricket and the fact is I'm not annoyed with cricket. It's just a couple of people made a strange decision to remove me from umpiring."

By “a lot of people” he, of course, means David Forester, his Basset Hound and his demented octogenarian neighbour Phyllis.

Darrell Hair is mad.

Darrell Hair lives the dream

Let’s face it. We all want to sue the IC-bloody-C. For instance, yesterday, I bought a packet of biscuits. However, to my horror, I found that Malcolm Speed had interfered with my Ginger Nuts, and replaced the packet’s contents with sub-standard digestives.

When I spoke to my solicitor about this, he mentioned something about “evidence” to “prove” ICC’s outrageous assault upon my personage and biscuitage. Dumbfounded, I was left marooned to absorb another blow by cricket’s governing body.

Darrell Hair, on the other hand, thinks he has the proof and balls to succeed where I failed, by suing the ICC.

This popular and jovial umpire bases his argument on the proceedings of the 1814 Test Match, between England and Pakistan. Whereby, without at clear substantiation, he accused the Pakistan of tampering with the ball. In protest, Pakistan’s captain refused to take the field. Hair and Billy Doctrove took the decision to interpret the match as forfeit, awarding England default winners.

Subsequently, the ICC took umbrage at the umpire’s handling of the affair, and removed Hair from its elite panel of amazing umpires. Doctrove, however, remained. Hair now argues that he was removed on the basis of racial discrimination, what else could explain Doctrove’s continuation?

It is generally accepted that Hair doesn’t have a chance in hell. The ICC’s case rests on the principle that Hair was the “senior umpire”, whereas Doctrove was just beginning his test career, and thus responsibility cannot be evenly divided.

Yet, I can find no reference to the status of a “senior umpire” in the laws of cricket nor anywhere mentioned in the ICC’s literature. This principle, to me, makes no sense. For the same offence, you must treat the perpetrators equally.

Saying that, this uneven handling of the umpires does not equate discrimination. I’m not sure under which jurisdiction this case is being conducted, but in UK law you must prove a discriminatory intent to prove racial discrimination. This simply does not seem present, given the evidence.

Hair has long courted controversy, and this affair could have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for the ICC. Whereas it seemed sufficient to give Doctrove a good ticking off.

Undoubtedly, the issuing of legal proceedings and the employment of a silk will not be cheap for Hair. Nor will he win the case. But, I suspect, neither of these matter to Hair.