Score!

I bowled two overs yesterday. I conceded 37 runs. My team lost by two runs. It has led me to appraise my skills as a cricketer, assess my strengths and weaknesses.

My weaknesses as a bowler is probably my bowling. My bowling is quite weak. I’m not great at fielding either.

Among my strengths is the fact that I am not bad in the clubhouse. When batting, I am pretty good at the leave. The leave is my best shot. I’m better at not hitting the ball than hitting it. I am also very good at under-arming the ball to the bowler when standing at mid-on. I am so accurate that often the bowler doesn’t even need to break stride as he walks back to his mark.

My genuine skill in the game is scoring. I am very handy with a pencil in my hands. I know when to erase and not to erase. I can count to six.

Which is why I love the below clip of one of my brethren, Keith Booth, in action at in the score box at the Oval. Action is probably the wrong word. There is a long section at the end in which the most interesting thing to happen is Keith clearing his throat. My favourite quote is when Keith explains that his Tipp-ex is the second most important tool of his trade, behind only his laptop. Obviously no-one has shown him where the delete button is.

IPL: The Real World

Just to let you know that I’m being released into the community at large tomorrow. And then scooped up again and put back where I’m safest: locked in a room with a television showing cricket and computer that I can write rubbish on.

I’m providing a sort of live caption to the internet streaming of ITV’s IPL coverage. Which might be beyond someone whose average typing speed is around four words per minute, but I’m going to give it a crack anyway.

I could become the first person to develop the keyboard version of a stutter, or I could develop Tourettes, I could refer to silly twat mid-off or Shaun Bollock. So it might be a car crash. Or a computer crash at least.