cricket with balls

I think I know Bradley Hodge as well as anyone who doesn’t know him, I am sure he would disagree with me, but he doesn’t have his own blog (or does he?), so fuck him.

And Brad is struggling at the moment.

Well not at the moment, for his whole IPL career he has been ordinary, and there is a reason.

Brad likes one of two things, to be the man, or to be pumped up.

For Victoria, and whichever county side he signs for, he is automatically the best batsman, and if he isn’t, he walks around like he is until everyone assumes he must be.

Try doing that in a change room with Prince Brendon, Gayle and the Giant Alien Lizard Ganguly.

On occasions when he walks into a dressing room with bigger names he needs something else to hold onto.

Ricky, bless his heart, understood Hodge.

They are roughly the same age, were both child prodigies, both footy players and are both pretty sure of their own abilities.

Had Hodge not had 6 odd years where he couldn’t buy a run, they would have been life long teammates.

When Brad comes into the Australian side, Ricky can’t stop making noises about how great he is, how he would be an automatic starter for most other sides, and then he bats him in important positions.

What generally happens is Hodge makes runs for Australia, his not inconsiderable ego is fondled nicely, and he does his job of back up top order international batsman rather well. 

The knight riders- off chasing phantom bloggers, designing blingy uniforms and losing games – haven’t spent any time pumping up Brad.

And his shithouse performances reflect this, but its not too late.

When he is struggling for Victoria, however rarely that has been in the last few years, I always imagined that Scholes, Hookes or Ship sent Brad out into the crowd (is 12 people a crowd?) and his mammoth ego is re inflated and runs are forth coming.

Buchanan can declare a day, preferably a match day, the ‘Brad Hodge is the greatest batsmen ever’ day, and get SRK (who is more mascot than owner) to spend that whole day talking Brad up, feeling Brad up, and taking that Ego to ejaculation point.

I promise the Knight Riders that this will work.