cricket with balls

There was once a play called “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, which was then parodied as “Six Characters in Search of a Plot”. Now, thanks to the global recession, we are now being brought the slimmed down version, “Two Captains in Search of a Plot”.

All we have learned from the Bangladesh/England Test series is that neither Alistair Cook nor Shakib Al Hasan has it in them to be an international captain.

Cook, for his part, appears to be going through the motions of captaincy. He doesn’t look to do anything interesting, he just moves players around with the absent-minded air of a chess player who doesn’t really understand the game. He doesn’t seem to encourage his troops, or indeed to interact with them in any meaningful way. For example, during yesterday’s play Jonathan Trott committed two of the sort of fielding howlers that would make even Monty Panesar blush, but not a word of consolation came his way from the captain – in fact, Cook simply shook his head and went back to biting his fingernails.

The most glaring example of his inadequacies came with the freak wicket of Junaid Siddique. You might think “How can you blame Cook on the back of one of the strangest dismissals of the last 25 years?”. But if you wind back a couple of balls, you see Cook setting the same field as for just about every over James Tredwell has bowled. And then Tredwell walking downt he pitch to him and making him move the extra cover fielder squarer. The result was that Siddique attempted to drive into the new gap, got it wrong and the rest will be repeated over and again on those cricket dvds that sell so well every December.

Cook’s saving grace is that he is nowhere near as appalling as Shakib, who has to be the least impressive international captain since Michael Atherton (who was, despite everything, shit). Shakib really does not know how to lead a team. He looks completely lost when it comes to setting a field, thinks that ‘leading by example’ means finding new and increasingly daft ways to give your wicket up, and has so little trust in his own team that he feels the only way to bowl the opposition out is to send down 1/3 of the overs yourself (and almost twice as many as any other bowler). That’s not the action of a good captain, it is the action of an egomaniac who thinks that no-one else is as good as him (admittedly this is true in the case of Naeem Islam, who isn’t even as good as Nathan Hauritz, but even Shakib could see that and only gave him seven overs of non-spin)

Clueless Cook is, mercifully, only a stand-in. Quite where Bangladesh go from Shakib Al Hopeless is another story, but they have to go somewhere or they have no chance of winning another Test for many years to come.

As the hours tick down towards the start of their oh-so-tricky first Test against Bangladesh, England’s selectors are apparently enduring sleepless hours wondering who to leave out from the side.

So far, the only people certain not to be in the starting XI are Luke Wright and Stephen Davies. Even Liam Plunkett might get a call, on the grounds that (a) Stuart Broad might not be fit and (b) he’s the next most-capped bowler in the side – which would mean adopting the age-old English policy of going for experience despite the player having been resolutely crap for the entire tour.

Which means that they have to play Broad, because otherwise they have to play someone slightly less threatening than Angelina Ballerina. Except they can’t play him as a part of a two man pace attack, in case his back goes again.

In which case they have to play Finn, despite his being likely to blow away at the first gust of wind, because they have to play Bresnan, if only to ensure that there is some food left come the intervals.

But if they play three seamers, they have to leave out either a spinner or a batsman. Which means either leaving out Swann (unthinkable), the leading wicket taker on this leg of the tour (Tredwell), the guy who scored a ton in the last game (Trott), the only specialist opener in the side other than the captain (Carberry) or Ian Bell, who hasn’t really done anything to justify being dropped. For once.

And before anyone starts, you’ve more chance of catching Andy Flower climbing out of the back entrance of Robert Mugabe than you have of him dropping KP.

Never fear, though. Because the Balls has the answer. There isn’t one England player who isn’t taller than any given member of the Bangladesh starting XI – even Bell. And when you get to a certain height, your features must just be fading into the distance, like mountain tops. Which means that England should just take advantage of their opponents being a bit on the short side and just play Broad. And then, if he starts falling apart again, slip Finn onto the field in his place. A bit of hair dye and no-one will ever know.

And then the selectors can get a decent night’s sleep and stop coming up with stupid ideas such as Trott opening, or dropping Tredwell on a track prepared for their opponents’ 1283 spinners.