Ambrose Ackroyd
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The ECB has rebuked its Twenty20 cricket squad for “un-English” behaviour at the Twenty20 World Cup in the Caribbean. Lord Petomaine, newly installed head of the ECB, claimed that the team’s constant refusal to lose matches was “an insult to the memory of one-day heroes such as Nasser Hussain, Ian Salisbury, Ian Austin and Derek Pringle.”
He continued: “I don’t know if we can even call this cricket. Not only does it look like baseball, sound like baseball and smell like baseball, but our players, having been picked on a pay-as-you-lose basis, are obdurately ignoring our recommendations to keep losing, and are stubbornly winning games. This is not English, this is not what we asked for, and as the guardians of the English game, it is high time we called time on this malarkey.”
“Derek Pringle must be rolling over in his grave. In his day, not only were we rubbish, but we were great at being rubbish. They were halcyon days, when medium pacers trundled in to batsmen who were happy to steal singles every couple of overs or so, and chasing 150 over 40 overs was considered stimulating. Especially when you knew we’d never do it.”
“No, this is all wrong,” he muttered, his moustache dripping with angry, sulphuric drool. “We have to put a stop to it.”
The ECB has launched a scheme to help youngsters lose at one-day cricket, entitled “The National Defeatist Cricket Plan”. The document, which calls for the standard of cricket coaching to be lowered imperatively in schools and cricket clubs around the country, recommends that the future of English cricket be left entirely in the hands of men over the age of 80, preferably senile ones.
Part of the document, entitled “How to stop scoring runs”, has been met with derision around the county circuit, particularly in Yorkshire, where the art of not scoring any runs is ingrained. Geoffrey Boycott lambasted the ECB saying “they’re talking out of their rear ends, this lot. You won’t find anyone in Bradford who doesn’t know how not to score runs, I’ll tell thee that for nowt. If anything, it’s an insult, this bloody document. And what’s all this about running slowly between wickets? Running between wickets? Who does that? Bloody nonsense.”
The ECB has fallen particularly heavy on Kevin Pietersen, citing him as an example of “what not to do” in their 3000-page plan. Lord Petomaine layed into Pietersen for having the audacity to “hit the ball hard”, saying “not only has this South African ruffian had the cheek to score at more than a run a ball, he has actually abandoned his run of poor form which had us at the ECB in such rapturous delight. His technique is absolutely one to avoid if English cricket is to avoid the nightmare of winning one-day games ever again.”
He continued: “I don’t know if we can even call this cricket. Not only does it look like baseball, sound like baseball and smell like baseball, but our players, having been picked on a pay-as-you-lose basis, are obdurately ignoring our recommendations to keep losing, and are stubbornly winning games. This is not English, this is not what we asked for, and as the guardians of the English game, it is high time we called time on this malarkey.”
“Derek Pringle must be rolling over in his grave. In his day, not only were we rubbish, but we were great at being rubbish. They were halcyon days, when medium pacers trundled in to batsmen who were happy to steal singles every couple of overs or so, and chasing 150 over 40 overs was considered stimulating. Especially when you knew we’d never do it.”
“No, this is all wrong,” he muttered, his moustache dripping with angry, sulphuric drool. “We have to put a stop to it.”
The ECB has launched a scheme to help youngsters lose at one-day cricket, entitled “The National Defeatist Cricket Plan”. The document, which calls for the standard of cricket coaching to be lowered imperatively in schools and cricket clubs around the country, recommends that the future of English cricket be left entirely in the hands of men over the age of 80, preferably senile ones.
Part of the document, entitled “How to stop scoring runs”, has been met with derision around the county circuit, particularly in Yorkshire, where the art of not scoring any runs is ingrained. Geoffrey Boycott lambasted the ECB saying “they’re talking out of their rear ends, this lot. You won’t find anyone in Bradford who doesn’t know how not to score runs, I’ll tell thee that for nowt. If anything, it’s an insult, this bloody document. And what’s all this about running slowly between wickets? Running between wickets? Who does that? Bloody nonsense.”
The ECB has fallen particularly heavy on Kevin Pietersen, citing him as an example of “what not to do” in their 3000-page plan. Lord Petomaine layed into Pietersen for having the audacity to “hit the ball hard”, saying “not only has this South African ruffian had the cheek to score at more than a run a ball, he has actually abandoned his run of poor form which had us at the ECB in such rapturous delight. His technique is absolutely one to avoid if English cricket is to avoid the nightmare of winning one-day games ever again.”
