RIP Fantastic Mr Fox

So Sir Alec Bedser is dead. Given his reactionary stance on most aspects of modern cricket it is highly probable that among his dying wishes was the installation of a rotisserie spit in his grave in order for him to spin in it at his leisure.

He would have been given an early opportunity to give the spit a test drive as his county Surrey kicked off their season by subsiding apologetically to a first defeat to Derbyshire at Oval since 1966. Bedser was probably moving through the gears as it was revealed that big money signing Chris Tremlett was being rested for the first game to “manage his workload”. To be fair to Tremlett, it’s been a long old season so far what with all the team photos and tracksuit fittings.

It didn’t get much better today down at Hove as another Tremlett-less side muddled their way to 199-7 against Sussex, reliant mainly on a heroically stolid performance from Arun Harinath who blazed his way to 62 off 290 balls.

In fairness to the Lions (they’ve reverted back from the Brown Caps to add “a bit of bite to the team” according to Chris Adams – crank it up Sir Alec) they faced up against a Sussex team with the bit between the proverbial. They welcomed back recent defectors from beyond the county line – coach Adams and new captain Rory Hamilton-Brown, poached from the Sharks in the winter.

I was hoping for at least one burning effigy of the Surrey skipper or maybe just a pig’s head lobbed onto the outfield, but perhaps the Sussex fans were pre-occupied mounting this zealous protest against the assassination of a local fox at the orders of Sussex chief executive Dave Brooks.

Down With This Sort Of Thing

I’m not sure what I find funniest about this story. Possibly the fact that the police were called on the night of the killing as gunshots were heard. Or that Brooks justified the murder by claiming that the fox was “behaving strangely” and could have led to the cancellation of matches. Or the one local resident who questioned the safety of Hove’s cat population amid all this gunfire. Or the other one who speculated on the plight of the widowed vixen.

Or maybe just the demonstration itself, so pleasingly emblematic of county cricket – poorly attended, half-hearted and probably smelling faintly of Scotch eggs.

Maybe this is all an ill-conceived publicity stunt to boost numbers – the Leicestershire Foxes are visiting Hove next week after all. In fact, is that Dave Brooks hiding behind the hastily-created banner? I hope he hasn’t shot himself in the foot.