[Cricket, with the Lord of Byron]
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The Ashes tour continues to delight joy-seekers. The one-day series produced many highlights including a thrilling tie, but that frippery is now long forgotten as the sublime, multi-dimensional beauty of Test cricket grips psyches across the globe. |
| The first Test was played at Lord’s and the home side began well, but then stumbled ignominiously to defeat at the hands of the Australian bowling trio of McGrath, Warne and Lee. Things have not been going well at Lord’s lately. England have not won an Ashes Test there for years, the ICC has vacated and moved their offices to Dubai and the home of cricket has been earmarked as the 2012 Olympic Games archery venue. Suggestions that an archery tournament should be held there in lieu of cricket every Ashes series come as no surprise. |  |
Team composition for the Ashes Tests is always debated in great circular detail. To the anxiety of a certain type of purist, one-day heroes were drafted into both sides for the first Tests. Australia named blonde bombshell Brett Lee and England selected Kevin Pietersen in preference to the enigmatic, ageing warhorse, Graham Thorpe. To even greater anxiety, both have performed well.
Thorpe, who doesn't like to muck around with pain, had been pumped full of cortisone and epidurals in an attempt to be suitably fit. He was reported to have felt numb, yet strangely relaxed about his omission and promptly announced his retirement from Test cricket.
Duck soup
The Australians’ success has partly derived from their tactic of ‘psychic disintegration’, which included sledgehammer flavoured sledging. This is no longer official Australian policy though, as indicated by opener and hard-man Justin Langer, who had the England side walking on eggshells when he asserted: “when you smell a rose it really gets you back living in the mould”.
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After Lord’s, it seemed that retaining the Ashes would be duck soup for Australia. After all, there was plenty of it on the scoreboard during the first Test. In the second Test at Edgbaston though, things started to go wrong for Australia from before the very beginning, when McGrath rolled his ankle on a strategically placed cricket ball in a pre-match warm-up mishap. He was unfit to play and is very likely to also miss the third Test.
The Big Unit
In the second Test, England race to a ‘useful’ total then gain a ‘handy’ first innings lead, but are at the mercy of the whirling hands and mind of the big haired, immortal Shane Warne in the second innings. Another embarrassing disaster looms. Enter ample England all-rounder Andrew ‘Freddie’ Flintoff, buttressed by his specially reinforced trousers. His trouser manufacturer explains: “Freddie is a big unit and likes to get very animated when he is appealing, which puts extra duress on the crotch area of his trousers”.
So, the scene is set. The strapping colossus strides to the crease and promptly wrenches his shoulder in the execution of a savage square cut. Things look even sicker for England.
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Freddie is made of stern stuff though. Despite believing that his ‘arm had come off’, he clicks it back in and receives a buttock jab. He defends briefly, but then the drugs kick in. He brutally bludgeons the attack and allows England to set ‘some sort of target’. It is felt that it will not be enough, but Flintoff has no truck with pussyfooting. He thunders in to take vital, timely wickets and Australia are soon in disarray. Their cause seems lost. Hysteria and alcohol grip the Birmingham crowd. Shane Warne strides to the crease and calmly, skilfully and shrewdly scores 42, but somehow manages to tread on his stumps.
Salvation Harmy
The crowd breathes again. Just one more wicket needed. Maybe England really will beat Australia. But, run by run the target is neared. Short, fast deliveries thud into bone and soft tissue, a catch is dropped, wide balls fly past the keeper to the boundary. Heads are in hands. This can’t be happening! Australia now need just three to win and stomachs are knotted. Tears well. The humiliation of throwing away such an opportunity! Deep pits are dug to crawl into and die in. Commentator Mark Nicholas observes that you could ‘literally cut the atmosphere with a knife’.
And then, when all seems lost, it happens. By rights, the final battle should have been Flintoff versus Warne, but a different giant paceman, Steve ‘Salvation Harmy’ Harmison, thunders in. A vicious, rearing delivery grazes plucky Kasprowicz’s glove. The ball loops wide and dips. Hitherto hapless keeper Geraint Jones, conceder of 26 byes, flings himself at the ball. Hearts leap into throats and stop beating. Surely not. He wouldn’t drop it would he?
He doesn’t. The world stops. England and cricket have won the closest finish in Ashes history and Flintoff is named man of the match. The populace go berserk and the gutters flow with celebratory vomit late into the night.
Not on your telly?
One can be sure that English cricket supporters are now lobbying furiously to keep Test cricket on terrestrial television. The ECB has sold the rights to cable TV for next season and the nation will no longer be able to bond in this egalitarian manner. Meanwhile, some Australians, though not Kaspa, dispute the final umpiring decision but grudgingly admit that it was a bloody good game and are secretly pleased that they may at last have found worthy opponents. For now, at least.
A pretty good innings
Before the series, the English and Australian media loosed then sooled their moral guardians upon Shane Warne, who has recently separated from his wife Simone after a number of his colourfully covered sexual escapades. Despite their troubles, the pair have vowed to remain best of friends. It is felt that they had a pretty good innings, all things considered.
As expected, on the ground, this fabulous, almost mythical ornament to the game was stimulated and unfazed by the turmoil and has consistently bamboozled the England batsmen. At Lord’s, he just failed to pick up the ‘Michelle’ he’d so desired, so his name will remain absent from the Lord’s honour board, though he does have his portrait to fall back on. At Edgbaston though he collected ten wickets for the match and his Test tally now stands at 599. The great man has been immortalised on a deluxe ‘limited edition’ watch, ergonomically designed to nestle tastefully in the nether regions.
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Lunatic fringe
When discussing Warne, many prefer to talk through their lunatic fringe. The recent sermons on the mount from people unable to put themselves in Shane’s boots, suggested that he is a bad egg who should be sacked, defenestrated and expunged from the record books. The twisted reasoning of these fanatics seems to be that sportspeople should at all times set a particular flavour of high moral standards, lest kiddies be suffered to be voluntarily led up the garden path. This is believed to be a grubby, unpaved path that leads to the belief that the consumption of drugs, smokes, drink and inappropriate sex will lead to success in sport, business and the arts. For now, the naysayers are mercifully quiet again, but they still lurk, waiting.
Harold Park, a little Aussie battler of the first water, is on the alert at all times for fundamentalists and their vile cells and has reported these terror mongers to both the RSL and the government hotline. Harold, proud to have performed this national service, explains: “It’s the enemy within, mate. Modern warfare and all that. Be alert, be very alert”. He also fears that the nippers of tomorrow don’t know they’ve been born and may have difficulty understanding that Shane Warne actually existed. As they sit eating their tasty ‘Christmas in July’ damper, dressed-up in their filthy ‘dress-down for drug concern’ rags, they'll be asking, ‘Daddy and Mummy, was there really a Shane Warne?’
In order to protect little ones of every cloth, Warne’s long-running contract with TV station Channel Nine was personally terminated by the famously abstemious owner Kerry Packer, though pundits predict that that door has been left slightly ajar.
[Ed. We of the Knights of Shane have remained loyal throughout]
Sexy juices
Highly respected, early-morning TV chat show sex therapists have mooted that Warne is a sex-addict and that ‘up to’ one million Australians are fellow sufferers. Hope is at hand though, as social architects have proposed that genetic engineering will eventually triumph in the dirty war against addiction. The research is in and it shows that certain types are sadly afflicted with abnormal genes that could, and should, be corrected by a spot of genetic tweaking.
Dr Eugene Metarzan from The Centre of Deviant Correction is confident that if he gets his hands on Warne soon, it will not be too late. “He ain’t broke, but I can still fix him”, he chortled. He cheerfully acknowledges the possibility of side effects, but insists that there is no room for unreconstructed perverts in our backyards.
The good doctor, a certified life skills coach, was a pioneer of the popular sex match texting services where one simply texts the names of the potential couple to the number at the bottom of the screen. In reply, one receives an indication as to the degree of compatibility of the sexy juices.
Warne though is adamant that cricket comes before sex. Before the game he said that he’d turn down a beautiful woman if it meant he’d be able to bowl England out in the second Test. We can only wonder which lady was sacrificed for the cause.
Two pot screamer
There is also concern about Warne’s alcohol consumption. While true Aussies consume beer and may now partake of wine, Warne has a little peccadillo. His alleged fondness for the melon liqueur Midori mixed with lemonade has raised a number of eyebrows. ‘It’s almost as bad as being a two pot screamer’, opined professional ratbag Warwick Farm, before being reminded that he shouldn't talk rot.
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Warne’s special diet of pizzas, chips, toasted cheese sandwiches, fags, ladies, melon liqueur and milkshakes is being examined by nutritionists worldwide. It is widely believed that if he’d stuck to more conventional sporting fare, he would never have made it past club cricket. |  |
Sanity Clause
The West Indies have been touring Sri Lanka without many of their stars, including Brian Lara, due to seemingly interminable contractual disputes, though there are rumours that a sanity clause will be inserted in the players’ contracts in time for the 2007 World Cup. The Windies were generally trounced, but some of the new players have shown some promise.
n.b. There is no such thing as a sanity clause.
Sluggo
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Meanwhile, the ICC qualifying matches have been completed in Ireland, with Bermuda being the surprise qualifiers. The top four teams will compete in the next World Cup, receive US$50K from the ICC and gain ODI status for four years. Bermuda will be the smallest nation ever, both in area (53 square kilometres) and in population, to participate in the World Cup. Dwayne 'Sluggo' Leverock, the left-arm Bermudan spinner promptly called up his mother and told her: "Mama we're going World Cup! Get ready! Get ready!" |
The Lord of Byron would like to warn that this article may have contained drug use, inappropriate behaviour and gratuitous sexual references.
No ratbags were harmed in the making of this article.