Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Baggy Green Balls

People might think I hate the Aussie cricket team. I don’t. I love them. I love them like an illegitimate red-headed step child that I beat daily with a sock full of batteries.

For my fellow Australian fans, the first two Ashes Test matches have been fascinating for those of us who enjoy pulling the wings off flies whilst boiling your own scrotum in vats of chilli oil.

In the past five days, the former champions of the cricket world (aka The World) have achieved the following:
Collected six wickets in conceding 1,192 runs and bowled 304 overs, whilst losing twenty-one wickets in 211 overs for 656 runs. To say we’re half as good at batting and three times as bad at bowling as England would be just about right.

I’ve been following the Aussie team for as long as I can remember, and my D-grade indoor cricket record speaks volumes of that. In my illustrious career, if a batsman hit a short, wide ball for four, we’d follow the tried and untrue method of bowling shorter and wider. To be fair to my team, we’d normally had a couple of beers before we played and had to pay about $15 a game for the privilege. I’m assuming that Ponting didn’t cough up too much cash to pad up and score 9 runs in the latest Test.

My indoor cricket team were shit, and we appreciated that fact. We didn’t try and sledge the opposition batsman when they hit us for six (around 5 balls per over). Cricket Australia is in the position now where Shane Watson can’t give lip to Alistair Cook for having a pooncy name and then ask Shane Warne to get him out. There’s no Adam Gilchrist to hit a quick 90 runs off one Graham Swann over to push the run-rate up. These days, there’s Ricky Ponting and there’s Doug Bollinger. One’s a retarded, shaved monkey and the other has taken those shavings and glued them to his head.

Australia is now on par with New Zealand and the West Indies. They are marginally ahead of Pakistan, only because the Pakis keep taking bribes to try and be shit, rather than accept a salary to actually be shit. They’re a half-step up from Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, two countries whose cricketing heroes can be seen at the village markets selling hand-raised piranhas in order to feed their families, get an education and buy a cricket stump with what’s left over.

Cricket Australia – it’s time to get some respect, some perspective and someone worthwhile to give the Allan Border medal to. If you’re short of candidates, I once got two wickets in a row in indoor cricket, but sent down a short, wide one for the magic hat-trick ball and was subsequently hit for six. The batsman and I had a beer after the game and laughed about it. Not together, mind you, but the thought was there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Excuse me .... But where can I get one of these hand raised piranhas??