What ho, chums!
So the 3rd Ashes Test starts tonight at the ungodly hour of 2 AM. It is a ridiculous time to be playing a cricket match. Why on earth can't these colonial johnnies play sport at a proper hour? The bolshie oiks seem quite determined to assert their independence from the ways of the Mother Country, no matter how ridiculous it makes them seem.
I and all England have been chewing over the bowling situation. Oakham's Broad is out for the series, so Strauss will have to choose one seamer from Bresnan, Tremlett and Shahzad. In normal circumstances, one would opt for the chap from the leafy southern shires over the northern prole or the uppity immigrant. However, fast bowling is slightly unusual in that it favours the type of rough, big arsed, northern character (often from a mining background) who is happy to toil away whilst the rather more pukka batsmen loll around in the field. It is said, moreover, that Tremlett is a slightly yellow character, so I would be inclined to opt for Bresnan. He is just the type of beefy specimen we need to get stuck into the Australians.
The colonials, meanwhile, are in complete disarray. Their hopeless captain, Ponting, confessed this week that his man management is so terrible that he no longer goes near his bowlers for fear of putting them even further off their game. It was an astonishing admission from a man who is quite patently not officer material.
It seems to me that this Australian outfit lacks brains and breeding. There are, amazingly enough, a few decent schools in Australia, mostly in eastern Sydney - and the Wallabies, quite sensibly, recruit heavily from these institutions. The cricketers, for whatever reason, do not. I am sure that when Mr Sutherland (who is a sensible chap) comes to review Australia's campaign, he will put 2+2 together and demand that every Baggy Green XI should in future field at least one fellow from St Joseph's, one fellow from Scotch College, and so on and so forth.
It is really asking too much for a group of proles to be thrown into battle without officers to lead the way. And in Perth this week I expect Mr Strauss (Radley) to ram home yet again just why Englishmen spend £27,000 per annum on their son's public school education.
Yours, etc
Viscount Crouchback
Only £27,000? We need to raise that immediately, lest persons of lower class and breeding intrude. Just as we're doing with university education...
Posted by: Hector Synge-Smythe-Bullingdon | 15 December 2010 at 05:34 PM
Tally Ho! Viscount!
You really are in fine form... is there anything you don't know?
By the way, is it "un-Australian" to be enjoying Ponting's demise? I suspect the answer is yes, but, really, what can one do.
What a ghastly creature he is! Cricket Captains must be from New South Wales (Bradman, Benaud, Border, Taylor, Waugh, to name a few). No ifs, no buts, no Tasmanians no Victorians (no Queenslanders)!
Posted by: GPS Gerry | 16 December 2010 at 11:24 AM
What's the score at The WACA?!!!!
ceo
Posted by: CEO | 17 December 2010 at 07:16 AM
I've read that there's a Tasmanian mafia on the selection panel, Gerry. Sounds a bit rum. I've also heard that the Tasmanian gene pool makes Norfolk's look positively healthy.
I'm not sure, CEO. Is there a cricket match going on? Ho ho... but seriously, well done to Johnson. Splendid inswing. All he needs to do now is scrub off those atrocious tattoos and he'll look like a proper cricketer...
Posted by: Viscount Crouchback | 17 December 2010 at 05:50 PM
Oops. Spoken too soon my Lord. 27 000 pounds could not do the trick?
Posted by: darwinia | 21 December 2010 at 04:52 PM