One Barmy Soldier

Normally the Barmy Army trumpet rings out it works as a call to arms, the signal for a thousand stupefied contract workers to form a disorderly conga and sing ribald songs about Mitchell Johnson. In Dubai it sounds like a lonely last post. Where is everyone? Perhaps the insurmountable clash of cultures is to blame. Beer snakes and t-shirts bearing unhilarious ‘all Australian people are convicts’ slogans are actually forbidden according to sharia law. Getting lashed is stitched into the constitution of the Barmy Army. But not with an actual lash.

The ICC are hoping that the attendance will double when the series returns to Dubai for the final game. I’m going.

As for the team, maybe they are pining for the boozy encouragement from the sidelines. Or maybe they didn’t prepare properly. A lot has been spoken about the issues that the English batsmen had picking the length of the spinners. Thanks to an e-mail from a nice woman who appears to be doing PR for dhows, I’ve found the reason why:

 

Allen Attack

The jubilant curtain is to be drawn down upon an exceptional summer of English cricket in the only manner that befits it. Which is obviously two inane Twenty20 internationals against a reduced West Indies team, sapped of its prime talents by unavoidable commitments to the Champions League or, in the case of Chris Gayle, a sun lounger. The fixtures are the gruffnut on the icing on the English cake. Andy Flower is understood to be angered by the addition to his team’s workload and will undoubtedly take the opportunity to analyse future possibilities, selecting a side so experimental it may as well be eleven guinea pigs scuttling onto the Oval pitch with tiny guinea pig pads on. On that note I’ve literally just paid for my ticket.

 

The unconventional scheduling is the result of an ECB promise to Sky television, a crummy contractual vestige of the shabby Allen Stanford deal. Here is a recent picture of the disgraced tycoon:

 

 

The poor chap looks like he’s been bludgeoned by a blunt medieval weapon.

 

 

I’m saying nothing.

 

Ed Giddins

I was invited to write a piece on my favourite cricketer for World Cricket Watch and Balanced Sports websites. Other bloggers have also contributed to this series, using it as an opportunity to lyricize about iconic and celebrated figures of the game. I wrote about Ed Giddins. He took drugs and was a bit crap. Seminally crap as it turns out.

Here you go then.

 

 

 

Oh What A Lovely Wall

It seems that is now illegal to remark on Rahul Dravid‘s qualities as a batsmen without also voicing an additional comment about his good character. Everyone agrees that ‘the Wall’ is indeed a very nice wall. Nasser Hussain went as far to say gushingly that Dravid was a “sensational guy”, perhaps revealing a latent man-crush.

I have once encountered Dravid at close quarters. He was on Oxford St, standing outside Aldo. I can vouch that he appeared very courteous and humble while window-shopping for mid-priced loafers.

I can add Dravid to Shane Warne and Abdul Razzaq to the list of international cricketers that I have seen on Oxford St. It’s a rich seam, particularly when you consider I’ve only come across one footballer in that period. Jan-Aage Fjortoft. In HMV. True story.

I worry about Dravid. He looks a bit spoddy. I can’t help thinking that people might take advantage of his better nature.

We need a wicketkeeper. Rahul, put your pads and gloves on.

We need an opener. Rahul, put your pads and gloves on.

We need a wicketkeeper, and then opener immediately afterwards. Rahul, put your pads and gloves on and then put your other pads and gloves on.

Rahul, make us a brew.

Rahul, go get us some fags and a Toffee Crisp.

And so on.

Bet he makes a nice cup of tea.

Selectors Prefer Blondes?

It is the debate that has split the country in two. The nation has not been this riven since a roundhead first offered a cavalier outside to taste his musket. It’s Blur vs Oasis. Moore vs Connery. Pro-life vs abortion.

The latest hot spud demands that each and everyone of us ask fundamental questions of our own worldview and decide exactly where we stand. Do you prefer brunettes or blondes? State or private education? North or south (Leicestershire)? Burly or willowy? Tall or really tall? Swing or seam?

Yes. It’s the continuing discussion as to whether the England selectors will opt for Tim Bresnan or Stuart Broad for the first test at Lords.

I’d go for Bresnan. The selectors will probably plump for Broad. I don’t know really.

 

Torso Of The Year

I thought I’d seen everything in cricket until I saw a photo of Stuart Broad emerging like a wet Bond girl from the ocean in the ‘Torso of the Week’ section of celebrity tatmag Heat. The dark poetry of which is that the beautiful Broad abdomen has since been torn asunder and denied him any further involvement in the series.

The England management consider Chris Tremlett to be a suitable bowling replacement but if Heat magazine have a void to fill on their pretty-boy centrefold then the Surrey man is adequately sculpted also, as this eye-popping and slightly frightening picture testifies:

There seems to be some grass on the wicket. Maybe he asked for a Perth.

I Dream Of Ritzy

I don’t normally feel the necessity to relate the dreams I’ve had. Being so personal it’s the ultimate ‘you had to be there’ anecdote. But this weekend I’ve experienced such a bewildering succession of cricket-themed dreams I’m compelled to share. Each one is more surreal in its narrative construct than the last.

Firstly I dreamt I was Kevin Pietersen. I do this quite regularly. Usually I’m playing cricket. This time I was being introduced to the world as the sixth member of fresh-faced new boyband One Direction. I was explaining to the attendant press that I had been recruited to be the vital “cool, older one” in the line-up.

Then I was Stuart Broad. This happens less frequently. I had returned to England following my stomach injury and I was forlornly trying to recreate the Ashes in the street outside my house. My team-mates and opponents were recruited from local youngsters. The series was curtailed by irate neighbour with a ginger moustache who complained that we’d smashed one of his windows.

Finally I dreamt that Nathan Hauritz held a garage sale to flog some of his old Australian jumpers. Actually I was awake when I was dreaming this. And I wasn’t dreaming it, I was reading it across the rolling bar on Sky Sports News.

Whatever the motivation was for Hauritz to pursue this enterprise, it is odd for a professional sportsman to involve himself in something that is usually the preserve of pre-pubescent Blue Peter viewers. It’s been reported that Hauritz organised the sale as a final act of defiance against an unthinking selection policy, the last symbolic protest of a discarded manchild. If this so, then t’s tragic. If I had have dreamt it, there would have been tears on my pillow.

Tonight’s dream: Shane Warne and Liz Hurley.

 

Sid Vicious

It’s lunchtime. I’ve just woken up. Loose Women is on. I feel disoriented. I’ve got jetlag and I haven’t travelled any further than the kitchen. I think I might be developing a bladder infection. I spent most of the early hours needing the toilet but never went because I was worried that I’d piss away all my energy and drop off. I’m too old for this shit. The problem with maintaining an constant nocturnal vigil is that when the cricket turns into a nightmare there’s no waking up. You might consider that I’m being melodramatic, but take a look at the photo below. See the puce distorted features of my nemesis Peter Siddle. I had to pinch myself during his hat-trick this morning. Not to check that I was still awake. But because it was a preferable sensation than watching his mangled ejaculatory gargoyle face.

 

The Nightmare on Vulture Street

I need to sleep now.

ICC World Twenty20 Final Misinformed Preview: England

So far I haven’t commented on the fact that for the first time since 2004, England are performing well at an international limited overs competition. It’s a vaguely indigestible truth. Now I’ve managed to work it free from a back molar, I can try and talk about it:

Michael Lumb: Known by some of his team-mates as ‘Michael Dumb’. To be fair, he does look a bit glassy-eyed. Probably gives lie to CollyFlower’s claim that every England player is now thinking for himself. In Lumb’s case, this is probably a good thing. See ball, hit ball. Running between the wickets seems a bit taxing for him though.

Craig Kieswetter: Looks like a young Julius Caesar.

Kevin Pietersen: Does anybody know what Pietersen’s baby is called? Not sure why I’m so interested. Anyone who grumbled that Pietersen should be dropped at any point in the last year should not be allowed to watch cricket again.

Paul Collingwood: Is in a similar trough of form to his Australian counterpart, Michael Clarke. Seems that telling your players to think for themselves is more arduous than previously thought. At least he has the decency to get himself out before placing too much strain on the run-rate.

Eoin Morgan: Has been heralded by David Lloyd as the only reason England is any good now. Can’t imagine he’s strutting around the dressing room though lauding it over his team-mates though. Seems impervious to anything thrown at him. Including balls.

Luke Wright: Has an everyman quality of looking a bit rubbish, which also makes him easy to underestimate. Plays with a slight grimace on his face that makes me think he’s always a little bit constipated. Runs like he’s heading into a hurricane.

Tim Bresnan: More Yorkshire than Last Of The Summer Wine and tea. Give him a staff and leather jerkin, and he’s a Merry Man.

Michael Yardy: Has suspiciously lustrous hair. I wonder if he has paid a visit to the Advanced Hair Studio. I’d like to to go there some day, just to see all the pictures of cricketers on the wall. Yardy possibly jealous of Ryan Sidebottom (see below).

Graeme Swann: Likes shouting at Stuart Broad if he cocks up the field.

Stuart Broad: Likes shouting at Graeme Swann if he cocks up in the field.

Ryan Sidebottom: Worst hair in cricket. Pet of Andy Flower. In fairness, he has achieved the nifty feat of making us forget who Jimmy Anderson is. Likes shouting at anybody if they cock up in the field.

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A Gentle Broadside

Stuart Broad has the reddish complexion of a man who grew up holding his breath a lot when he didn’t get what he wanted. I can just imagine the exasperated Mrs Broad wailing at her satanic little son to ”just wait until your father gets home”, a threat to which he could gleefully counter with the information that Dad is on tour to New Zealand and won’t be home for months.

If I am right about Broad’s behavioural problems as a boy it would certainly fit in with the reputation that is quickly beginning to hang off him in his adult years. Added to a growing litany of crimes of petulance, Broad’s ongoing insistence on bowling shorter deliveries when he is clearly better served by a fuller length hints at an harrumphing aggravation that he isn’t operating at a quicker pace.

And now we come to the latest allegations of ball-tampering: “Mummy, this ball won’t reverse swing for me”. It is possibly true to say that as a means of getting the ball to swing, stamping on it is about effective as asking it to do so, but Broad should tread very carefully from now on. Otherwise he’ll end up in detention.

P.S They sell styrofoam cups of sweetcorn at Newlands. Which taste as bland as you would think.