I spent way too many afternoons watching Saker run in, beat the bat, yell, walk back muttering to himself, and then repeat.

He was so clearly insane, in the best possible fast bowling way.

I remember one game where he sledged a batsmen so loudly that I could hear it and I was out the back buying a pie.

Victorians loved him, everyone else hated him.

So what will he do when he takes over a bowling group full of male models and solid notherners.

Stuart Broad

For the first time in his career, Broad focuses on bowling tight nagging spells just outside off stump and never tries to bowl anything else. Everything is going fine until Billy Doctrove is asleep one day and misses a plumb LBW, next over Broad is fielding a ball at short fine leg but still manages to “accidently” to hit Doctrove in the throat with a throw to the keeper. Broad goes off the field to write up his apology.

James Anderson

Starts bareknuckle brawling and this leads to a dramatic improvement in his performance. Whereas before he would glare at a batsmen and the batsmen would think he was auditioning for Men’s Health, now they see the scars and glint in his eye and get scared.

Ryan Sidebottom & Tim Bresnan

Nothing much changes in they way they play, but experts notice that their sledging has a much more personal edge to it, Ryan refers to it as the 1 percent he needs for success. Unfortunately Sky mic Bresnan up for a T20 game and then have to apologise to all homosexuals, hermaphrodites and anyone who has ever loved the Little Mermaid. Sidebottom is dropped after bowling a bouncer fromtwo metres over the crease before running through to the batsmen and clothes lining the batsmen.

Liam Plunkett

Never plays again.

Graham Onions

Claims he is, and always has been, a rolling stones fan and hates that pissy pop music like Lily Allen. He also dyes his hair strawberry blond, puts on some weight, pinks his cheeks regularly and finally grows a goatee. He also lengthens his follow through by 10 feet.

Darren Pattinson

Hits Stuart Law in a pro40 game and is rushed into the test side where he becomes an into the wind specialist and goes on to take 300 wickets for England.

“29.1

Johnson to Anderson, 1 leg bye, fast and full, Anderson gets pad on it and gets a leg-bye

Odd that Anderson would take one there. Isn’t the nightwatchman supposed to protect the recognised batsman?

29.2

Johnson to Cook, no run, oh boy, this one stays a bit low, it’s right on line and Cook is fortunate that he got the bat down in time to get an inside edge on that

29.3

Johnson to Cook, no run, left alone outside off

29.4

Johnson to Cook, no run, clipped away to square leg

29.5

Johnson to Cook, no run, outside off, Cook can safely let this one go through to Haddin

29.6

Johnson to Cook, OUT, Cook is gone! Johnson gets another, fast and full, swinging away from Cook, who gets a thin edge through to Haddin. Wonderful bowling!

AN Cook c †Haddin b Johnson 30 (136m 84b 4×4 0×6) SR: 35.71

What a spell from Mitchell Johnson. He’s back, no question. And you have to wonder about the sense of using a nightwatchman if he’s not going to take the strike.”

My thoughts on nightwatchman are well known (any batsman who calls for one should be beaten with shoes) but surely if one is out there he should do his fucken job.

England didn’t need a nightwatchman, they needed Jesus, Elvis and Keith Miller to come in.

Ofcourse there are only ever 40 wickets to get in a match, so the extra 29 balls should be superfluous.

Monty and Jimmy did well though.

It is along time to bat when you know one wicket is all it takes.

It was a longer partnership than any of the first 5.

Professional batsmen all of them.

Not awkward tailenders struggling to hold onto the bats and play shots at the same time.

Guys who practise batting for hours each day.

Guys who eat nice food, drive sexy cars, and bed fine women all based on the fact that they are in the top 6 for their country.

And Montybot and Jimmy put on a better partnership than all of them.

It is sort of like buying a sex toy, and enjoying the box more.

As long as it gets you off, it’s all good.

McKenzie’s 2008 was so good he was dropped 2 tests into 2009, and his 2008 yielded 3 hundreds in 14 tests.

And James Anderson averaged 29 in tests, and 74 in one dayers.

Surely CWB’s Holly Colvin would have been the better option than either of these two muppets.

Boucher also made it, um, that is cool, not sure why he is there. Averaged 27 against England and 33 over all, made one hundred for the year against Bangladesh. If he was picked because Sclyd Berry likes him I can respect that.

And ofcourse the token county player, also a South African, Dale Benkenstein, who had a cracking year.

While it is great that Wisden finally recognised women’s cricket, it’s just a shame Claire had to share the honour with lesser cricketers.

Ofcourse the whole system is a bit of a joke, if I was Claire I would refuse to be involved at all.

Not just any woman, either, but England’s Claire Taylor. You probably have heard of her, as she was player of the tournament in the recent World Cup. This, on the other hand, is recognition of her stellar performances with the bat last year.

There will be people who criticise this decision and who see it as yet another change wrought by new Wisden editor Scyld Berry where none was needed. These people are very wrong. 2008 was hardly a vintage year for cricket. The others honoured are James Anderson, Dale Blenkenstein, Mark Boucher and Neil McKenzie, which to my mind makes two awards for longevity, one for leading your side to a title and one for being the only man in the world more superstitious than me. On performance alone, Taylor deserves to be there.

“Oh man I have ants in my pants and I want to dance. I get got out of this hood, ya dig. The Moon is getting dark on me bro. The Windies is startin’ to creep me out man, I gotsta leave. My Soul has been destroyed”

KP

The man is on edge.

The Windies are a cold and dark place for someone who lost the capacitance and then played in a team that can’t win a game.

He wants out.

According to him he is, “ready to do a Robinho”.

So I looked it up, a ‘Robinho’, (named after Lucio Fulci’s favourite footballer) is when you take all your team mates out on a boat, and kill them systemically, but each murder must have an individual flair, before coming home and pretending you have never been to the windies.

People keep saying this is a horror winter for the English, but no deaths.

Kp understands that the people want actual blood, and he has been slighted enough to give them what they want.

The only question that remains is how he should kill each player?

I suggest a disembowelment of James Anderson with a rusty hook, and Ian Bell should be forced to watch any innings of his where he makes between 20 and 40 with razor blades within his grasp.

How shall KP kill the rest?

With Tim McIntosh playing a dashing innings, and South Africa strolling home, all my time has been taken.

But I still had a few moments to see England fall apart.

Their weapon of choice was the nightwatchman.

James Anderson’s one job was to get Freddy through to stumps.

Instead he took a single.

Now there are many problems here.

Using a nightwatchman is a terrible practice that was invented by soft cock batsmen.

It has no place in cricket, and any batsman who can’t go out to face 8 balls probably shouldn’t be playing test cricket.

But when you do it, surely the job is for the tailender to take the last over, not take a single to put your last batsman, one who is set, to face the last few balls.

Even if the nightwatchman goes out the loss is negligible.

Because it’s Jimmy Anderson.

And other than not making ducks, he has little other use as a batsman.

There is a reason I brought up that factoid about Anderson’s duckless batting career, and not just to sound like a train spotting cricket tragic dickwad.

It’s because Anderson was on zippo when he took that single.

He had not a cracker to his name.

It’s a harsh call to say he took the single, thusly abandoning his job, just to keep his steak alive, but I have been called worse than harsh before.

Either way England have worked themselves into a unwinnable position, and the chance of losing 2 nil in a 2 test series.

At least Australia took 4 tests to do that.

cricketwithballs

It does take a billionaire to fuck over a rich pretty boy athlete.

England has decided to win the 202020 with a team suited to the low down and dirty pitch, not the most deserving/obvious and players.

It makes sense, but that may not warm James Anderson up at night.

His incredibly hot missus will though.

So it’s hard to get too upset for him.

England had two choices, pick the best XI who are the most deserving (and Luke Wright) and just say, we either win it ort lose with our best men.

Or they say, we pick the best side to win the game, and someone misses out.

That may have been their reasoning, but it’s not as if Anderson should have been an automatic selection anyway.

Anderson has been in pretty rubbish form with the white ball in 50 the rather retro 50 over format.

16 matches, 10 wickets @ 58.

In 3 2020 matches he has 4 wickets at 23.

But 2020 form is not real form, well not in this case obviously.

So now we waddle on towards tomorrow night, and we see what Graeme Swann can do.

If England lose and Swann gets punished Anderson may have the greatest we told you so smirk of all time.

I’d like to see that.

I’d also like to see the Graeme Swann drive around in a pink ferrari.

And i’d like to see aliens have sex with a horse.

Everything else means little.

I am talking to James Anderson ofcourse, the man who couldn’t take 3 wickets in the second dig to get a 10 wicket haul.

Diddums.

Sidebottom the stroppy cleaned up nicely.

He was probably getting a bit bemused with Anderson taking all the wickets now that he is the unquestioned main man of the crease.

Although even he couldn’t get Oram out.

Oram, who had been told by daddy (smith) that he had to learn how to play short pitched bowling, did so by swinging at a bunch of shirt balls.

I am sure there are some who will think he has slayed the dragon, but in truth the pitch was a bit slow and he was in one day mode, the real test is when he comes in on a quick pitch in tricky situations.

Hopkins and Brace’s wicket keeping gamble didn’t really pay off.

Prince Brendan failed in the only important innings, and didn’t look like a test number 3.

Hopkins made 27 off 116 balls for the match.

James Marshall probably could have done that.

New Zealand go down 2 zip, and probably will feel cheated by their overall crapness.

England are up and singing, and will get a wake up call at 150 clicks per hour from Dale Steyn.

Fox Sports, using the wisdom of the great Rupert Murdoch, didn’t have the cricket on.

In protest I watched Ed Wood.

And the parables were seemingly non existent.

Jimmy Anderson, like Ed Wood had a dream.

His dream was to take 10 wickets, Ed’s dream was to make his own Citizen Kane.

Jimmy and Ed both had a group of well meaning freaks around them, urging them to greatness, but ultimately it was Ed and Jimmy who would have to provide the speactuacular work.

Ed and Jimmy had people who were in the public eye pushing their cause, for Ed it was Criswell and Vampira, Jimmy had Bumble and David Gower.

Jimmy and Ed had to scale amazing heights, jimmy to take all 10 wickets wile Sidebottom the stroppy was at the other end, Ed to make a brilliant film with his lead actor buried and a chiropractor in his place.

Ed and Jimmy had their detractors, but the people closest to them believed in them, dopey fucktards that they were.

Jimmy and Ed were both ultimately brought down by the one thing that stops most people from becoming great, a lack of talent.

Their dreams were just to big for their stomachs.

Ed was obviously the more successful one, as he made plan 9 from outer space.

Jimmy only took 7 wickets against the Kiwis.

On a completely unrelated note I think Jimmy Anderson would make a great Glen or Glenda in the remake of “I changed my sex”.

If you don’t believe me, think of a cricketer who would look better in an angora sweater.

Exactly.

Personally my favourite Ed wood movie is Plan 9 from outer space, although I do like the irony of making a film called Bride of the monster and not really having a monster or a mock wedding.