He looks like the sort of smooth adult that was also like Teflon in the play ground.

Perhaps people tried to abuse him, but he probably had team mates from various sporting teams who would step in for him.

Plus the teachers probably kept on eye on their golden boy, don’t want the local cricket star being found dead behind the portables.

With all that in mind yesterday was probably the first real beating he has ever taken.

And he was beaten, hard.

It was public too, while everyone was at lunch, crowded around as Clarke didn’t even try to defend himself.

He just sat there been moved by the force of England’s blows.  He was more a punching bag than a fighter.

There was nothing he could do to stop it, so perhaps he thought by hitting himself a few times he might confuse England and gain some respite.

Instead it just made the English beat him up harder.

Finally his lifeless body was put out of it’s misery well earlier than anyone had thought possible.

Battered and bruised he will be returned to Cricket Australia, who may not want him anymore.

I thought Clarke was unlucky, Kieswetter won the man of the match award, but surely no one did more for England’s victory than Clarke did.

The only good news for Australian cricket was that this might mean Australia don’t automatically turn to Clarke when they need their next captain, they might actually look at who would be the best captain, and not just the guy who speaks to media without saying anything and who grooms himself well for photoshoots.

England were nerdishly efficient and brutal on Australia all day. They still had some great luck, dropped catches finding other fielders, Haddin caught of the hip, but surely there biggest slice of luck was that Clarke was playing.

Swann and Collingwood are lucky their team won, because conspiring to get Clarke out could have been the worst thing either of them had ever done.

To defend such a low total, wow.

The batting might have been poor, but the bowling was outstanding.

The fielding was even better.

But special credit must go to the captain, what a special effort.

I have never been so proud.

Shame the men played like a team of busted assholes.

According to Daniel, test match sofa is an anarcho-syndecalist commune. This is his way of coming across as the lovable uncle you wish you had. When Ahmer was heart broken it was Daniel who comforted him, but not because he cares about Pakistanis (he rates all former colonies the same way, like that thing he found on his boot) but because he knows that appearing to be on Ahmer’s side will win him more fans. Test match sofa is not an anarcho-syndecalist commune it is a fascist dictatorship where he regularly beats the other commentators, especially Tom. His leadership style is styled on Lady Thatcher and Groucho Marx with a touch of Genghis Khan thrown in.

Even though Dan clearly sees himself as superior to most other people, he does share several traits with other English supporters, the “can’t lose” attitude. I don’t mean “can’t lose” in the way an Indian supporter who has the Indian flag painted on their face thinks can’t lose, I mean the way English supporters build themselves an emotional bunker so that no matter the result they end up winners.

Dan has already proclaimed that Australia will crush England. So if Australia crush England, he can say, “see I told you so, I’m pretty clever”. If England wins, he can streak naked through the streets of Tooting screaming about the power of the Empire. Either way, Dan is the winner. And this sort of defeated undefeatable loserism is how English fans shield themselves from ever having to look at their own ineptitude in sport.

I, on the other hand, believe Australia should win because they are the better side. I’ve studied this match with the asexual eagerness of a young Mike Hussey, and while I think England are a very cohesive unit, Australia should have the fire power with bat and ball to beat them.

When Australia does win, it will be the greatest win in the history of organized sport, over coming adversity, impossible obstacles and Bangladesh. . No team has overcome so much (including the Michael Clarke handicap) to be victorious.

If, and this is purely hypothetical, Australia do lose, it will be Michael Clarke’s fault. Because England couldn’t possibly play better than Australia to win.

Obviously.

Either way Dan wins, because he has chosen both sides as usual, like a proper Englishman should.

http://player.videojuicer.com/bootstrap.swf

On Friday I watched the bewildered eyes of fellow commentator Ahmer widen, fill with embryonic tears and slam shut to block out the piercing light shining from Jarrod’s triumphant teeth and I was filled with a fearful dread. Finally Ahmer composed himself and said softly “why are they always such bastards?” It was impossible at this moment to know whether he referred to Australia, who had just, unimaginably from their parlous position, stolen Ahmer’s moment of glory, or his own players who had made him believe and then coshed him over the head with the stinking, putrefying wombat of reality. “God must have many places for Pakistani fans in heaven, because he puts us through hell on earth” was his ultimate summation. And then I realised it was my turn next.

Today England take on the Aussies. They’re in better form than the Pakistanis were. They are brilliantly coached, able to adapt their game to different conditions, as their stunning wins in both St. Lucia and Barbados attest, and have no pressure on their shoulders. Why shouldn’t we dream? We’ve won one of our two ODIs against them (albeit after losing the previous 6). Of all the teams in the tournament we probably relish fast bowling the most. We’ve got the bloody Ashes for heaven’s sake.

But believe me it’s not as simple as that. If you’d seen the encroaching smugness gather from the third last over of that semi on Jarrod’s widening chops. If you’d seen him lean ever so slightly further forward as the penultimate over yielded a succession of 2s, keeping Hussey on strike. If you’d watched with resignation and terror as he leaned back in his armchair, overwhelmed by a grin so mammoth his eyes disappeared into the flabby contours of his ecstatic face as the final apocalyptic six sailed over the mid wicket boundary, you’d know there is no hope. They always win. Because, Ahmer, they are always such bastards.

http://player.videojuicer.com/bootstrap.swf

How to beat Australia:

The good news for England is that Pakistan have already shown how to beat Australia, now all England has to do is copy it again and not let 48 runs off the last 17 balls.

Don’t lose early wickets. This is key.  All of Australia’s early wins were dominated by the fact that no matter how many runs they made they knew they would take early wickets. Stop the wickets and you are half way there.

Smash the part timers. There are 8 overs to be bowled between Smith, Watson, Hussey and Clarke, if you score 100 in these 8, the other 12 don’t need to be attacked so hard.

Use your spinners smart.  Australia struggle against spinners, but only at certain times.  As White and Hussey have shown in the last two games, at the end they smash them a long way, what they don’t often do is work them around well earlier in the innings.  I’d use a spinner in the first 4 overs, and between the 6 and 14 over marks.

Yorkers.  Australians don’t improvise as much as others, they still find yorkers hard to score off.

Don’t get Clarke out.  He won’t score at a rate that can hurt you, getting him out will only allow bigger hitting and faster scoring batsmen in.

Target Watson.  If Australia bowl first, you must smash Watson.  Embarrass him.  He is a touchy guy and getting under his skin is important because if he bats for ten overs he will put some serious holes in your bowlers.

Dirk and Tait can’t field.  They are the two weak links in the field, they should be exploited.

Clarke is captain. He looked bad when Pakistan got on top, so England should try that, you’d think.

How to beat England:

Other than Ireland, no one has tested England, but Australia has the team to do it.

England’s openers don’t score much.  While England have been the highest scoring team in powerplays,the openers have only put on one large partnership, KP and Eoin shouldn’t be facing Tait and Dirk early. Australia have to make that happen, and Lumb and Kieswetter will have never faced an attack this fast.

Luke Wright at six. Australia have Steve Smith at eight, he averaged 73 in shield cricket last year.  Luke Wright is a big hitter and an eager man, but him being as high as six is a weakness for England.

Put England under pressure.  England, like Australia before the last match, haven’t been under pressure. In the field the English team has been sniping at each other a bit, maybe with a bit of match pressure that could get worse.

Beat England’s first plan.  Collingwood is not a natural captain, he doesn’t like to do the job, but has been stuck with it.  So far this has been pretty easy tournament for him, but if Australia can unravel the plans Flower has carefully written out for him, he may not be able to think on his feet.

Kieswetter’s strike rate is 112.  While Lumb has been exploding, Kieswetter has been much slower.  Perhaps it was worth keeping him in.

Target the slower balls.  England have used the slower ball a lot, they might not use them as much at Barbados, but if Australia target them it will be interesting to see what the English bowlers will go with.

Take Bresnan and Sidebottom out.  Both bowlers can give you length, if you can take one or both out, England are in trouble.  England is a tight unit, but they can’t afford these two to go for runs.

Lack of match winners.  As Australia have shown, they have match winners to spare, England don’t.  If their team doesn’t all fire, Australia has a chance.

Who will win:

I think Australia will win, but I thought they would beat Pakistan easy, so what do i know.

“Take a dash of Saeed Ajmal.

A Michael Hussey.

Make sure you mix both with a game that for the first time in a long time Pakistan can win.

It helps if the game is a final, especially one that Pakistan have dominated from the third over in the first innings until the 18th over of the second innings.

Then just fly a plane over Pakistan and drop a bunch of razor blades.”

It is just that simple.

Had Australia lost, the Australian suicide kit would have been simple, just a copy of Michael Clarke batting on a loop, and then the Australians would have broken their own necks.

Instead it is Pakistanis who are thinking of offing themselves, and with good measure.

The Pakistani team didn’t just lose, they broke up with their fans last week, then wooed them back with romantic gestures and a promise of a beautiful life together.  Then they only go and sleep with 3 transsexual prostitutes the night before the wedding.

It was more than tragic.

There is something special about Pakistan.  They don’t just lose, they take it to a whole new level, some sort of Greek tragedy directed by Takashi Miike.

48 runs from 2.5 overs with 3 wickets in hand.  You shouldn’t lose a game of cricket from that position, you shouldn’t lose with a ball to spare, you just fucken shouldn’t.

Mike Hussey’s form was wrist splittingly good.

60 off 24 balls.

Even when he was a statistical anomaly he would have struggled to do anything this good.

Ofcourse there was the normal ice cold finish and the eager beaver twos, but the sixes.

Oh the sixes. Everyone was a punch to a Pakistani kid’s grandmother, in the throat.

There were so many sixes. I gave up counting, but I am sure the average grandmother took some hell of a beating.

In the past I’ve had a fair bit to say about M Hussey, mostly about his test form, well, almost exclusively about his test form, but this was fucking amazing. For a player to step up and do that at that stage in a semi final was just off the charts. Ofcourse he may have kept his test spot for life and ensured that Michael Clarke is the next Australian captain. But his heart was in the right place.

I was so excited I was going to give him a Natalie Portman, and I only give them out for truly special performances, but I didn’t think Mike Hussey would be a fan of Portman.

So here is a Molly, as I see her as more his style.

Well done Mr Hussey, today you have ended the life of many Pakistani fans and inspired me to give you a Molly Ringwald.

Look how happy Molly is, she has always said that while Saeed Ajmal is a good bowler, he can be hittable at times.

Have you been to an IPL party? You have to sniff an entire mountain of blow just to get in the door. After that things really get crazy. All I’ll say is this, shaved poodles, whipped cream swimming pools and a Prince Randian impersonator.

Gary Kirsten is just another white overlord who does not get the sublime nature of the Indian male. Plus he wore a Greg Chappell signature hat to training one day.

Ravinda Jadeja was a Pakistani sleeper agent.

India are already number one in test cricket, baby. Why try hard for this pathetic form of cricket? Everyone knows test cricket is the Nun’s labia.

Sachin (the great unwashed’s God) & Sehwag (the thinking person’s God) weren’t there. That is some handicap to be imposed, like cutting off a leg before a race.

The players all decided to strike based on the fact that the man who signed so many heavy cheques for them, I think his name was Lalit, was in some trouble.

Indians are humble and beautiful people; they are already the number one test team. To continue being the number one T20 team would just be bad manners. There are plenty of titles to share around.

L Ron Stanford rigged the result.

With Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar in the one change room there was so much negativity from their general’s facial expressions that the whole team became massively depressed.

It was angst from Sania Mirza defecting to sleep with an averagely talented cricketer who gives away his life on the telephone.

In 2007 Lalit was working hard to ensure the success of the Indian team, in 2010 he is working hard to make sure he doesn’t get politically hung draw and quartered. The BCCi are back in charge now.

Pragyan Ojha was at home.

According to Quantum Mechanics India did win, just not in the world we currently inhabit. Hire season one of “sliders”, the answer is probably in there somewhere.

While it is highly illegal and known by few, we can finally reveal the truth for you here, Shah Ruh Khan owns shares in the Indian Cricket Team.

There was a time before that when the subbie batsmen and Windies batsmen were the same.

At one stage only the true prophet Sehwag could play him.

It was if all of life’s mysteries were wrapped up in the elegant fingers of Mendis and while the rest of us tried to think about a way to play him, the Lord just smited him.

Now it is all unraveling for Mendis.

According to Iain O’Brien his carom ball and wrong one are fairly easy to pick from the hand.

But that is not the worst bit.

The worst was when Cameron White failed to pick his wrong one. What should have happened was a couple of nervy deliveries later White played an ugly slog and Mendis picked up another easy wicket.

Instead the Big Bear got cave man on Mendis. He took 34 off 16 balls, and it was only a brilliantly madcap field placing by King Kumar, putting Dilshan directly behind the bowler, that slowed White down.

It wasn’t that White even seemed to be picking Mendis, it was that he didn’t care what Mendis bowled, he was just trusting his eye and hitting the ball a long way.

It was brutal and easy. After that one wrong one White never truly looked in trouble, but a few people in the crowd and the camera man certainly did.

Watching the Australian top order struggle against Randiv, a fairly faceless innocuous type spinner, Mendis would have been quite excited.  He probably thought he could cash in with a few wickets and start to restore his career a little.

Instead he was beaten up.  And by Australia, who seem to make the most simple spinner look good.  That must have embarrassed Mendis especially after the way Australia’s two best players of spin, Clarke and FFPM David Hussey, went out.

Since originally saying Mendis would be worked out, I have said that he either bowls like Chris Harris to batsmen who know him, or Jim Laker to those that don’t.

With the way Australia play regular spin of late; you’d say that they were going to be the last to work him out of those who have faced him. England still haven’t played against Mendis, but he might not be around long enough to ever play them if he keeps having days like he did against White.

Although even without mystery he might still confuse England.

With no real spin or flight, Mendis is less mystery and more a fading curiosity. Like Winona Ryder.

They win 2 of the 5 matches scheduled for them.

One of those against a team who was in the outer limits of world cricket only a few months ago.

The other against a team who also couldn’t make the semi finals.

If this team was India, England, or Australia, it would be a small story.

But it is South Africa, and that word will come out.

It seems every tournament South Africa go out, and then I, and everyone else with a voice, feel the need to say something. Or laugh. Or say something and laugh.

I have no idea whether South Africa choked or not, they certainly should have won the game, but they played the game as if almost all of them were locked in a giant tub of vanilla ice cream.

Maybe they choked on the ice cream, maybe no one told them they could eat their way out of the tub.

I don’t know, and I really don’t care.

So instead of writing about how they go out early in every fucken major tournament I’m going to start the bloggers and media pro forma South Africa exit article. This should be used by everyone instead of really looking at the major reasons for the loss as that might one day lead to sympathy for South Africa, or South Africans.

“Headline: South Africa crash out following loss to {insert team name}

Body: Today South Africa were bundled out of the {insert tournament name}.

There were many reasons for the loss, but none was more evident than {choose from duckworth lewis/general stupidity/choking/fate}.

The captain {insert name} has come under flak, as has the form of several experienced players.

While several fans are claiming South Africa choked, the team management believes that {aliens/ICC bias/Lalit Modi/Fog/Freemasons} are to blame.

A thorough review of the tournament will be held by Cricket South Africa when the daggers are taken out of {insert name of best scapegoat}”

I also have a pro forma for when South Africa win.

“Headline: South Africa win, fuck me sideways

Body: It had to happen one day. “

I’ve written before and International cricketers’ WAGs needing to fit their gestation into the Future Tours Program.

Sadly, they have not listened and Mrs KP is now going to produce her little KP during a ICC tournament.

Instead of making a big deal about it, the ECB are handling it with properness and decorum.

This is obviously the wrong way to handle it.

For one, KP is being allowed to go home.

KP is box office.  People love to see him fail and make runs.  People love the drama he brings with every slightly nerdy red bull run. He is England’s franchise player.

By allowing him to go home they are robbing themselves of him for at least one game, which might not seem like much, but during a tournament as jam packed as this one, it needs as much KP as you can squeeze in.

This is how I believe Lalit would handle the situation.

KP would never be allowed to go home.

Instead Mrs KP would be flown out, on a private plane, to barbados.  The camera crews would be tipped off as to when she was traveling over, so that there were heaps of shots of her and her team of medical professionals (good looking Indian Doctor and team of 6 blonde nurses).  For the next few hours news stations would be showing these clips on a loop.

Then Mrs KP and the team arrive and are hidden away amongst much secrecy.  Hopefully by this time the private jet, sexy medic team, shots at the airport in London have whipped the media into a frenzy.  I could imagine Sky Sports Tim Abraham outside the team hotel saying, “We’ve been informed that Mrs KP is fine, but there is still plenty of Mystery around as to why Mrs KP has been flown over. Some of the more out there conspiracy theories is that the team are to eat the placenta in a team bonding exercise.”

On twitter Lalit could have laughed off that.

Instead what Lalit does is organise a tent to be out on the ground, a medically sound tent, so before England’s next match Mrs KP can be cesarianed on the ground, for decency and medical reasons it will be not be shown to the crowd.

After she has given birth, the baby will be suitably cleaned and attired.

Then KP shall exit the tent, him wearing his English kit, the baby in a teeny tiny replica shirt (with Pietersen on the back).

KP shall then lift the child into the air, Lion King style.

At this stage the only people on the ground, who aren’t in the tent, should be KP, baby KP, and the cameraman and crane operator who are shooting the momentus occasion with the Michael Bay shot of tracking around KP and baby.

If the ICC tried to stage manage this event Mrs KP would give birth in a community hospital to a intern on her first day on the job.