English women best in all the world

I am informed but a certain continental colleague of mine that the Spanish believe that England is the only country in the world that produces unattractive blondes. I was shocked by her sentiment, and would never publish such misogynistic clap-trap here.

But today perhaps the English women have finally proven their superiority over their Iberian counterparts, and indeed, the rest of the female gender throughout the world.

The international tournament of “who is best” was noticeable for its lack of Spanish entrants. We can only suppose that they withdrew from the field, once they realised the fitness of the opposition.

Yesterday’s final was the epitome of a ruthless dispatching of opposition. If the men’s final was a grisly, messy knife job, the women’s was a professional, even clinical shot in the back of the skull.

The rank amateurism of England’s opponents, however, created huge gulf in standards between us and everyone else. Their ill-preparedness and defective skills were especially noticeable in the European teams.

The finalists, New Zealand, have a shambles over their former captain, who didn’t believed that she was receiving adequate remuneration for the honour of representing her nation. Australia’s bowling lacks cutting edge. Most of the sub-continental sides are packed with duffers.

Whereas England boasts a multi-million pound (money) outfit, that provides central contracts for a class of professional cricketers. The sheer difference in quality overwhelmed a plucky, if under-resourced opposition.

Nevertheless, England’s women are the most dominant and attractive women in the world. The force of this argument is not weakened by the England captain’s resemblance to Andy Caddick.

Shahid Afridi wins World Cup

People wonder why Pakistan don’t normally succeed in these sorts of tournaments. It’s usually because they’re not good enough. However, this time, Shahid Afridi (cometh the hour, cometh the nutcase) revealed their secret to success: "The guys were really motivated." Not that it mattered. The guys may have well spent their time practicing their Risk, because they weren’t needed.

Whereas the Indians have their eye in on the strategy board game. They’ll wipe the floor with them.

Cliché artists always trot out the line that the “truly great” perform on the big occasions. Well, big occasions are much like other occasions, were the person that “performs” is much to due to luck as anything else. In any case, Afridi was awarded the Man of Match award in both semi-final and full final.

The tournament’s other great player, Tillakaratne Dilshan, got a duck in this game. Which we can only conclude to mean that he is rubbish. Or, at least, akin to Alec Stewart in the all time levels of greatness.

If Shahid Afridi was a stripped to the waist Roman gladiator, he’d probably stand at a Margaret Thatcher/Heman level of hardness.

Geoff Boycott was remarked that, as a batsman, Afridi had everything, except for brains.

Yet, Afridi is in the top five in terms of wicket taking and run getting. His economy rate is better than any other bowler in the tournament. His fielding can border on the spectacular.

But his hair could use some work.

Afridi could have won the tournament for Bangladesh, or even Australia, such was his form. And Pakistan would not have won without him.

Here’s to madness.

Pakistan win. Saffers lose. Simple as that.

The “main-stream” media have always been criticised for succumbing to group-think. All the journalists club together at the end of the day’s play, agree their stories over a pint, like a gang of uncreative miscreants before attending the headmaster’s disciplinary attentions, and collectively file identical copy to their respective papers.

Whereas that to which tarts horribly refer to as the “blogosphere”, and I call the “tributary, dried out, shitty stream”, has been praised for its independent thinking.

Nevertheless, bloggers have universally swallowed the lazy line of labelling South Africans as “chokers” and Pakistanis as “mercurial artists”. Of course, accepting this pre-packaged narrative saves all that brain activity, and allows you to tap merrily over your keyboard without needing to engage any grey cells.

Now, there is only one independent blog left now: ME. I’m you’re lot. I am now your only shitty stream of objective opinion.

So, here are my own GENUINELY independent thoughts on the match:

South Africa, being mentally prepared for the tournament’s final stages, were unfortunate victims of mis-timed peaking. The Saffers simply peaked too early. They wiped the floor with their opponents in the competition’s initial stages, whereas the sputtering Pakistanis were only finding their form early on. The semi-final saw South Africa on a downward trajectory, and Pakistan on the up.

Although, this is a boring way to look at it. We prefer stories and pre-determined analyses of matches.

Well, sorry to say, it’s all bollocks.

First match of the season

Yesterday must have been a good day. I woke up this morning with a sharp pain in my ribs and some white, crusty matter in my hair. I guess I fought with those Pakistani fans, but at it must have ended amicably.

So! It was the first game of the season for me. Late, I know, but I have been jet-setting as late. Following in the wake of King Cricket’s photo journalism, and my own last year, I too, present the 2009 season's commencement.

The day started well. Sandwiches and Greek pistachios. I’m not entirely sure whether they were actually Greek, I bought them in Greece and they have a lot of Greek on them. So, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and brought them with me. A decision I would come to regret.


As I was walking along, I began to worry over the state of my boots. The previous day was spent picnicking in a field in Suffolk, and a group of curious cows found great interest in my leather footwear. Then I realised I wasn’t going to London premier ground, Twickenham Green, but slumming it in the Oval. Buggered boots be damned.

Here is a picture of the cows.


The match started well. The dancing girls proved surprisingly entertaining. The crowd never tired of booing the male dancers off the stage. The joke was still hilarious after hours of repetition. Here’s one dancing on his face.


Also, the celebrities were out. Sadly, Boris Becker could not afford a ticket; he ponced a free one as a cameraman.


Remarkably, my companions were complaining of ill-preparation: they had left their sunglasses at home. Not me. Look how cool mine are.


However, as Ireland’s innings sank into oblivion, I had a crisis of my own. Where to put the pistachio shells?

Jesus Christ! What am I going to do with this lot?

Alas, the weather began to have a bit of weather about it.


Then it rained and we went to a bar. Following this, some things happened. Then we went to a curry house. And I went home.


Ah, the ever reliable District Line. You never screw me over with Duckworth Lewis calculations.

Learning to tolerate T20

The difference between test matches and twenty20 cricket is much like the difference between meaningful sex with a partner you love, and casual, lusting encounters. Test cricket, although enjoyed with a person for whom you feel a deep affection, can be a little predictable. Whereas twenty20 gives you short, sharp, satisfying excitement, plus the added thrill that comes with the possibility of contracting a STD.

I used to hate twenty20. Well, not hate it. It’s the sort of generalised hatred you feel for those who sit next to you on the train. Untargeted and malicious perhaps, but not personal.

But, any format for which Australia are patently useless is a format of mine.

Plus, Ireland are better than Australia. England beat Ireland all the time, so, using the laws of transitivity, England are aches better than the convicts – the Australian ones, I mean.

In any other sport, “the favourites” would denote the team that were best at it, but the Indians are also singularly useless at twenty20. Although they tried to frighten England yesterday by wearing Dutch pyjamas, they failed dispatch an obviously rubbish side, in a surprisingly spectacular stand-off between ineffectuals.

Whereas, the South Africans have continued to deploy their controversial strategy of having a good team. Although he has a face that looks like Jack Russell’s kitbag, Graeme Smith has proved a quietly efficient dispatcher of the opposition. Annoyingly, it seems that quality does sign through is correctly used in this format.

Anyway, I’m off to watch the England game today. If anyone fancies a few bevies with a cynical, embittered blogger, look out for the most handsome man in the stadium. Then give him a slap. It would make me happier.

Why England losing ensures the continuation of time

Another day, another useless England performance. As vital to the universe as the celestial clockwork of the heavenly bodies, the English trouncing denotes the even progress of time.

Spending a lot of my own time with those blighted by the continental disease of Being Foreign, I am required to explain the nature of cricket to them. The thrashing is an event that I am frequently required to account for.

Our forefathers, being far-sighted, all-knowing geniuses, predicted the coming of our saviour: the game of cricket.

Thus, when the Julians and Gregorians were establishing their calendars, they required a divine consistency to propel time forward. Something so over-whelmingly predictable was needed, yet nothing so catastrophically unavoidable existed.

Thus, the Lord brought into existence the England cricket team. Wired into the slow ticking of each clock is the insipid confidence of each blue capped wearing numpty.

It would be with their defeat, that time would move forward. Each enfeebled collapse marked ever hour, the tides turned with every dropped catch and a gutless run rate marched time steadily towards judgement.

Although the Englanders provide opportunities to roll eyes amongst the cricketing fraternity, and extraordinary high levels of mirth for Muggle-like continentals, it is upon their failure that our own success depends.

Laugh all you like, but without our sacrifice of inevitable and constant humiliation, our whole world would come crashing to an end.

Sluggo still practicing hard early in the morning

Diego Maradona, probably the most famous and skilled and all footballing cheats in the world, was also famed for his rapid decline from the sporting vigor that powered his youth.

Too much drugs, too much booze and, crucially, too much sex, saw an end to his career. It a similar fate might await an equally cricketer: as Sluggo has a secret sun-up shame.

Now, being a facebook friend with your heroes is a dangerous occupation. Generally, doing anything on facebook will lead to layer of pain, regret and remorse. Look at Nicholas Sarkozy.

Facebook is an excellent news service, if you want your life to be inundated with facile pieces of information the lives of those who are trying to use you as a means to have sex with your sister.

So, imagine, to my horror, when I saw this "suggestion":


Now that he has given up the pressure of international sportsmanship, he is touting his new life as a dawntime deviant.

The spinner come sunrise stud may be embarking on a new age of celebrity and public exposure. Perhaps we shall see him on some island, trying to "get outta here". Here's hoping that they take Shane Warne instead.

Bloody Clog Trotters

There are list of nations that British people struggle to be racist towards. The French and Germans are easy. However, it’s difficult to foster an irrational disdain for a Dane or a Belgian – these are the harmless, innocuous, no-body nation to which we attach no distinct hatreds. Until recently, the Dutch were in that camp.

Of course, we’ve had our differences. The Netherlands was used as a base for a massive navel attack by a Spanish Armada in 1589They did sort of invade us in 1688, permanently disfiguring our constitution. Plus, the all speak infuriatingly good English – in most cases, better than native speakers.

But we can forgive them of this. The English probably consider the Dutch their closest friends in Europe. We both share a taste for watery beer, Big Brother and football hooliganism.

Now we must reassess this relationship.

Recently, there was a game of cricket between England and the Netherlands. England should have won, this is the natural order of things, and the Dutch, not being unreliable southern continental types, should have respected this.

In stead, no doubt due to malignant Australian infiltration, the Netherlands first presumed that they could win, and then arrogantly went on to do so.

The only rational response is irrational, ill-directed, knee-jerk attacks upon the Dutch nation. First of all, throw away your frying pan least any future pancake offend it. Then, you much expunge all that is orange from your house. Finally, resolve yourself never to cough again, in case that someone may believe you are talking Dutch, and the following feelings of association with those cursed wetlands lead to inevitable suicide.

Also remember this:

The Dutch are rubbish at everything. Whereas England are only rubbish at certain things, and only those things that we choose to be rubbish at.

Damned Dutchers.

jaja

As a total foreign in the world of criquet i find quitefunny the idea that england has lost it against the Dutch. Poor ductch people, evryone laugh at themin westearn europe, cuase they are so funny, and look, now they win, poor english, i have been recently in london, and poor english, (specially atheist) look so depressed quite qite funny, thanks to the Dutch for such a funny weekend here.

Cricketer kills pigeon

"We need to have another look at this now. We need to find out what happened."

Twenty20 match between Yorkshire and Lancashire at Headingley on 29th May 2009.

Daily Telegraph unearths ancient secrets of cricket

In a controversial article, Nick Hoult has stripped bare cricket by publishing “Five Secrets of Success" in today's Daily Telegraph. In bulleted form, the list of guaranteed success is as follows:

1) Good batting
2) Good bowling
3) Good fielding
4) Good captaincy
5) Good coaching

The Professional Cricketers’ Association has denounced exposé, as damaging to players’ future prospects:

“We not saying that we are the magic circle, but players are under order not to unduly reveal any secrets on pain of receiving the feared Ůnchāľŋ Ħğœ order.”

The Ůnchāľŋ Ħğœ is, an ancient disciplinary practice, still shrouded in mystery, but is thought to involve heaping piles of cold Bovril, gimp masks and ritual suicide. The PCA goes on,

“But in revealing these secrets, Hoult is likely to put many hard working cricketers out of business, and flood the market with unskilled amateurs, galvanised by this Gnostic information.”

I’ve only been buying the Telegraph – dubbed wittily by wits as “the TORYgraph” geddit? – because they have all the private lives of dirty MPs outlined in detail in what has become known as “The Great Expensegate Affair Scandal”.

But now, not only do I know about Austin Mitchell’s Secret 59p Ginger Nuts Shame, or that it costs £112.52 to maintain John Prescott’s long suffering toilet seat, but now I can guarantee cricketing success.

Not only has the Telegraph revolutionised the modern game with today’s addition, but it has taught me something new today. Underneath a completely justifiably huge piece about England's path to glory in the up-coming Twenty20, most editors would have been tempted to shoe-horn some random box filled with meaningless copy about generic principles. Not the Telegraph. They lead us into new territory, with hard hitting investigations that have unearthed secrets held since the birth of Dan Brown himself.

What wonders they are in the Telegraph!

Nooooooooooooooooooooes!!!

The news has rocked the world to its very core. The last a report to have such a deep impact, was the news of Margaret Beckett’s unsuccessful claim to put hanging plants on expenses.

I’m afraid to say that the titan of turn, mastication of rotation, girth of the turf, the battalion of Bermuda, he who breakfasts on batsman himself, Sluggo aka “Dwayne Leverock” has announced his retirement.

In a tearful statement to a stunned universe, the buxom Bermudan stated:

"There comes a time in your career when you need to take a step back. You've given all you can and your body sometimes tells you, with the aches and pains after games, that it is time to slow down. Even though my heart is still in it, the body says slow down.”

Indeed, there is no player out there that stretched the limits of physical fitness like this stout spinner. His body was under twice the strain than any normal, lesser man.

The truth is that after Bermuda lost their ODI status, the backwaters of ICC associate cricket lacked the excitement to feed the big man’s immense appetite.

"It has meant so much to me to have people recognize me for who I am as an athlete,"

His fine, distinctive figure on the field will be dearly missed. Goodbye pork pie bat.

KP violence sends boy to hospital

With an aggressive, fierce whirl of a large, blunt instrument and his bat, Kevin Pietersen, disgraced former England captain, brought young Reece Topley to his knees with a stinging blow to the temple in a net session yesterday.

Little Reece was known as “Tiny Topley” by his few friends (by which we mean those who are yet to betray him), because of his abnormally stunted growth – due to malnutrition and years of neglect.

Standing at a mere 6ft6in, this sickly youth was forced into brutalising schedule of unpaid labour for the benefit of oversexed England stars.

Yesterday, the dedicated lad, fresh from a spell of sweeping out Andrew Flintoff’s voluminous chimney, Rickets-blighted Reece was bowling his little heart out for England’s Kolpack player.

Dizzy with overwork and disease, Thrush-riddled Topley failed to detect KP’s evil stinger as it speed directly at its target: a mal-shaped head. Proffering only a mis-directed, stumpy hand to shield the fearful blow, his myopic eyes failed to co-ordinate any real defence.

The badly beaten boy fell to the ground like a sack of dead rodents, to the cheers of the surrounding Englanders.

As the stretchered boy was gently helped into the neighbouring bin, KP was compassionately remarked,

“That’s another one. Maybe we should start feeding them?”

Cricinfo goes the way of all things

Well, much like the march from peaceful, predictable, pleasant present to the feckless, futile, frightening future, cricinfo has embraced brash, conspicuous modernity and rebranded its website.

Just like everyone else.

Of course, there were compelling reasons for a change: the old website was possibly the most ugly thing outside Germany, and it took a while to find what you need.

Although, their main problem is the most of their stories are still written by troubled chimps who learned their English from Boris the Bullet Dodger. Sambit Bal announces the friendly new site with the cheery words "So what should I say? Welcome to the new Cricinfo?"

Charming. But at least it is coherent - which is a novelty on the site.

But, the scorecards offer broader functionality, and after the facebooks campaigns and knee-jerk fear that greats any change has died down, we'll soon get used to it. We don't have any choice, I suppose.

Although, I find that the more technology I'm given, the less that I actually use. Yet, give me a knackered geocities site, and I'm all over it like Yorkshire rain. It's like the inverse relationship between the size of a person, and the amount of space they take up in bed. The smaller they are, the more they demand.

JROD COMES

That's right. JRod, of www.cricketwithballs.com fame is finally seeping out of cyberspace and is now splashed onto hard paper, ready to come in your eyes in the comfort of your own bedroom.

It is all part of cricketwithballs.com's strategy to become General Secretary to the UN by 2015. Nothing will stand in his way. One day, we will all be little balls, bouncing to the rhythm to the great thruster himself.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. BUY IT NOW.

If you don't already own a copy, you are clearly deranged or, at best, Charles Colville.

West Indies rediscover their historic form

Well, I have returned to Blighty once again, and am delighting in the wondrous cleanliness and functionality of English toilets. More to the point, the IPL has finally done the decent thing and finished.

Meanwhile, the West Indies have proved us all wrong, once again, by returning to the glory years of the early 2000s (sometimes, people hilariously refer to this decade as the “naughties” – these people should generally be avoided, and, if at all possible, persecuted).

England have comprehensively humiliated the Caribbeaners in this series. No single Windie resisted the England attack; the usual reliable Big Wigs failed to fill their boots. Even El Crabbo himself seemed overwhelmed.

It’s not as if England are any good – Stuart Broad led the attack, for Courtney’s Sake. The Windies simply imploded.

After the winter’s heroics, the West Indies have returned to the golden era which boasted players such as Ian Bradshaw, Rawl Lewis and Vasbert Drakes. At last, they have returned to the era that young boys remember so well from their childhood.

Chris Gayle is threatening to “do a Harmitwat” and bleat endlessly at how much he suffers, and how terrible everything is. In any case, we can probably look forward to another tour in about two months time, with the possibility of acquainting ourselves with a new quartet of weirdly named seamers.

Although, with their track record, it is equally possible that they will win the Twenty20 World Cup.

Stanford: Failed drug figher, too?

Some weeks ago, cricketwithballs insinuated that Allen Stanford may, in fact, be a CIA undercover operative. As it turns out, this may not be far from the truth.

Since his empire of meaningless paper came to a crashing demise in, only three, including Laura Pendergest-Holt, chief investment officer of Stanford Financial Group, have indicted.

This is a bit odd.

Stranger have happened, of course. For instance, Paul Collingwood’s continued inclusion into the England team can be attributed to his ownership of a laminator, which he lends to backroom staff for their “Please leave the toilets as you would expect to find them” posters, pinned up in away grounds loos.

Indeed, strange things do happen. John Sweeny, of the BBC’s investigative flagship programme Panorama has accused Twatford of being in the pocket of the US Drug Enforcement Administration as a registered informant from 1990. (You can watch the entire report here.)

He's currently under the protection of the American legal authorities, who were presumably happy for him to steal $8 billion of other people's money in return with the valuable information that brought about the complete cessation all trade in drugs.

This seems a little tenuous to me, and very little evidence supports this claim.

Most interesting is the ECB’s continued claims that it conducted adequate due diligence. Although, it states that all is fine because:

“ECB is not a financial regulatory body. No regulatory body expressed any concerns about Stanford when we announced the contract in June 2008.”

Bless. Horrid money confuses them.

But there is another admission:

“ECB conducted due diligence on the original deal.”

Notice “the deal” and not the man. Hitherto, the ECB has laughable claimed that it had been professional and thorough in its background checks. But now says that it only looked into the project, not the man. (See full statement here.)

The man who was bankrupt; lost his banking licence in Montserrat; was wanted by the Floridian authorities for multi-million dollar tax non-payment; and openly on the SEC “He’s a bit dodgy” list.

For some reason, the Australians, Indians, South Africans and the money fetishist ICC didn’t want anything to do with this snake-oiled cheat. And yet the ECB has been untouched by their involvement with the Black Hole of Antigua.

They haven’t even had the foresight to make the illegal immigrant cleaner into a scapegoat. Everything about this shocks me.

Anyway, John Sweeny: kudos.

So, England are the best team ever

It seems proven then. England are the best team ever and Ravi Bopara is the new Lenny Kravitz.

Playing in the only test ground north of the Artic Circle, the Durham cricket fans are showing the world just how popular test cricket still is. Although the West Indies are doing their best to show us that it doesn’t really matter any more – there are more important things in life now.

Chris Gayle has the air of a man whose passionate girlfriend is jumping all over him, but because of the sounds of the neighbouring Morris dancing session he is finding it hard to get into the mood. He seems to be trying his best to respond, but the gentle clunks and whoops of the tubby men next door are proving compulsive listening, and certainly not eliciting the desired reaction.

Two Essex lads made runs for England yesterday. The most noticeable feature of this was their post-match interviews, were viewers could delight their Beckham-esque, streetwise accents.

“Yeah, mate, we chuffin’ ‘ammered ‘em propah.”

In celebration, Southend Pier was moved seven miles inland, in order to turn it into a giant kebab, in a bid to provide Alistair Cook with the mental encouragement to forge a double century.

It’ll probably happen, not because of the kebab, but because England only get double hundreds against the West Indies. But, of course, they’re still quality opposition.

England best team in the world

A lot changes when you’ve been away for a week.

Ravi Bopara, who’s a sort of alright nurdler, that would be perfectly suited to fiddling around the edges of England’s 1990s has now become England’s best batsman.

Joanna Lumley has made a bid for the Prime Minister’s position.

Graeme Swann, who’s about as English as the contents of the British Museum, is the new Andrew Flintoff. He can ably smack a quick fifty lower down in the order, and he’s literally impossible to play if you’re a left-hander.

A man whose name is so funny that would bring Noel Coward to his knees with laughter is now a bowling deity.

Although, struggling with this unexpected elevation to the status of “legends”, the ECB has recalled some of its key players from its “total Sheisse” days – namely, Jenny Bellend and Sadam Hairybottom.

The question is: WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

Like trying to talk German to Spaniards, the England management have managed to make complete tits of themselves by communicating an apparently simple message.

Of course, as we find every time the Windies come over to the UK, they are totally ill-equipped to cope with English conditions. The tour has no bearing on everything except for providing a troubling set of indicators for the popularity of test cricket.

Although, it does prove that no English achievement is too great for us to belittle.

Ah, England. It’s good to be home.

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

Strauss' negotation tactic revealed.