Being the well-connected internationally renowned blogger to the stars, I have some pull.
So when I watched Bangladesh win the toss and bowl I called my good personal friend Haroon Lorgat.
He answered straight away, as he always does, and we had a good chat about life, love, accountancy, twincest and cricket. He really is a wonderful man, and I’m sure you’d like him.
After the general chitchat we got to the reason I’d called him, Bangladesh winning the toss and bowling.
I told Haro that this should not be allowed to happen again. The ICC should regulate against it, set up a working committee, send out a press release and all that sort of important stuff.
Bangladesh don’t have seamers. You can’t put teams in without seamers. It makes no sense.
Shahadat Hossain is bowling at a pace that old ladies can walk past. Robiul Islam bowls at a pace that Craig McMillan would mock. And Rubel Hossain is the Lasith Malinga you get if all you have is spare change.
England is still not a team of superstars, but when it comes to pop gun attacks this was a broken water pistol. England can handle an attack from a broken water pistol.
Bangladesh was so bad that a friend of mine said watching Rubel Hossain bowling made him almost tear up, he felt like he was watching himself bowl in a test. When you are watching a test bowler and you feel a kinship with him that tells you so much. I also bet there were thousands of people watching who were thinking what I was, I reckon I could score at least 30 against this mob.
When Bangladesh send a side in, on average that team makes 430. It is a pointless act. All they are doing is prolonging their defeat. Making us watch a lopsided game for longer without giving us an interesting first day. They could have batted first been out before tea, got the game humming along.
This is the sort of stuff I told ol’ ICC Haro. He understood what I was going on about.
While he didn’t guarantee me it would be a new Law, he is definitely thinking about it. Hopefully they will name it after me.
I would have called Jamie Siddons directly, but by the look on his face he is too angry to listen to my reasoning. Plus, if he had anything to do with today’s decision, or even if he didn’t, he is probably looking for someone to punch.
