cricket with balls

Ricky Ponting claims that when he showers an alien by the name of Pinky gives him a special directors commentary of Schindler’s List from the right side of Steve Spielberg’s brain.

Ricky Ponting claims he was the lindberg baby.

Ricky Ponting claims that in a previous life he was Jesus’ butler.

Ricky Ponting claims that with the conditions in his team’s favour that winning 5-0 is possible when asked it as a direct question.

OK, so hardly the same thing, but from the headlines you’d swear he was running around the press conference tongue kissing the journalists with his own shit marking out a 5-0 win on his chest.

It is possible Australia win 5 zip, it is also possible England win it 5 zip.

Other things that are possible:

Shane Watson outing himself as a lover of plush toys.

Luke Wright using a deft touch with the bat to beat Australia in the deciding test.

Nathan Hauritz taking off his shirt and doing the Warne dance when Australia win a test.

Andrew Strauss getting caught with his dick in an exhaust pipe.

Australia or England winning 4-1 or 4-0.

If you asked me if these were possible, I’d say yes.

I probably wouldn’t say, “There’s no reason why not. It’s all in our (their) hands.”

I’d probably say, “none of these events are likely to happen, but there is a slim possibility that if you fucked Tony Greig in the eyeball for an hour straight you’d get nothing more than a sore dick as he is clearly an indestructible mother fucker, but what is more likely is that you’d end up with eye ball under your foreskin and if you have a big dick, just a touch of brain wedged in there too… and eyelashes, I ’spose”.

Anything is possible.

It is also possible that a captain in the twilight stage of a long career could be asked such an obviously inflammatory question and fuck it up. If the conditions favoured it.

I’ve decided to pick a team of football from what cricket has to offer.  It wouldn’t win the world cup, but I think I’d enjoy watching them play.

Striker

Sachin– sure he is not gifted with the most athletic frame, but like a non mental Diego Maradonna more than makes up with it with the ability to score at will and carry a team.  Has had some pretty handy world cups already.

Striker

Pollard – big strong and has great club form, picked for his ability to turn only a few opportunities into goals.  People worry that he has never done anything at international level to justify his millionaire status.  He doesn’t seem to mind.  Probably not adverse to the odd dive and handy with headers.

Left Midfield

Sulieman Benn – Occasional brilliance is often overshadowed by talk of his height and temper.  Only player to be sent off by his own captain after a bad tackle and bad attitude.  It is never clear if he ever tries to actually hit the ball in a tackle.

Centre Midfield

Ponting– Scores more than most, but is still a very heavy handed defender.  Is quick, plays well of both feet, is a winner, but can lose his temper at times. Has won at the top level a few times before. Doesn’t like being substituted.

Centre Midfield

Mark Boucher – A tough team player.  Like a rugged family sedan, once you have him there you’d know that spot was well taken care of.  Yet you’d still drop him from time to time to see if you have someone younger or flashier.  He might misread how much injury time is left in big games.

Right Midfield

Paul Collingwood – Often thought of as nothing more than a defender who plays midfield, yet he can score on occasions and is always important at the end of matches.  Only has a right foot, and this often makes his ungainly style look even uglier than it would normally.

Left Back

Ray Price – Hard as nails, ready to hack you just for fun, always slower than the men he is defending.  No one ever gets past him with the ball and their shins.

Centre Back

Charl Langeveldt – Steady, consistent, easily droppable, and dependable.  He will have been in and out of the team for years.  The sort of defender that gets no headlines but does the job when you can’t find anyone better.

Centre Back

Kumar – Silky smooth defender that makes the opposition strikers feel ungainly in comparison.  Always takes a piece of the ball, is the captain, penalty taker, and pin up boy of the team.  Also the most likely to put off the opposition when they’re taking a penalty.

Right Back

Harbhajan Singh – An attacking insane defender who loves to take free kicks from 40 yards believing that he can score a goal.  Mostly he’ll miss by a mile, but every now and then he’ll score.  Will also be red carded for the occasional slap.

Keeper

Rahul Dravid – Nothing gets past Rahul.  Sure there are times he is less animated than an East German goal keeper, but would you ever back yourself to get through him?

Manager

Jamie Siddons – All the best managers have trouble keeping their emotions in check, Siddonds fits  this well.  With him in full view of the cameras you can really see the veins almost explode in his head as the other team score.

There are several perks to working with Jrod. For example, it is not often that I get to be the least sweary one in a room. Or the handsomest. And it isn’t that often that you get a book acknowledgment which is more glowing than the one that the author gives to his English teacher. But what really makes it worthwhile are some of the conversations. The conversations are, at times, surreal.

Last week,  for example, I was accused of being like this guy, during a conversation in which the aforementioned Big Cheese revealed not only a poor grasp of the script of ‘Team America: World Police’, but of his own megalomania generally. But it did give me an idea. Suppose we here at the Balls went all Niyazov on the world and decided to rename the days of the week and months of the year after cricketers?

For example, November always starts with loads of fireworks and fun, but usually ends up being grim, depressing and throughly downbeat. It is no coincidence that the month of November sees more suicides than any other month of the year. Welcome, then, to the month of Botham.

Following Botham, we currently have December. It is a month full of anticipation, a long build up to a lot of wonderful things. Or is it? Isn’t it more a month of anticipation, usually followed by a bit of a damp squib at the end, when everything turns out to be nowhere near as wonderful as you expect it to be? In which case, we should rename it ‘Afridi’.

And we can go on. January could be dedicated to Cricket Administrators, because no matter how much the new year promises, you can guarantee that it will be fucked up somehow. February, on the other hand, is short and wonderful. You get paid more quickly, either the weather is decent or at least the long winter months seem to be coming to an end. It is, in a way, mercurial. Therefore it has to be Tendulkar month.

Then there are the days of the week. For example, Wednesday is a completely pointless day. Nothing good seems to come of it and it’s appearance usually only serves to remind you just how much work still needs to be done. A bit like Ian Bell, really.

And as for Monday, well, don’t you just want it to fuck off as soon as it arrives? Like you do with Ricky Ponting?

Whereas Friday is the classic day that usually starts well, then all goes horribly wrong. Forever. In which case we should call it ‘Ashraful’ instead.

That’s as much thinking as I am going to do. The rest of the days and months are up to you lot. Besides, I’ve got to get on with being a despotic headcase*.

(*I’ll concede that the banning of lipsynching was a pretty good idea. If only he’d banned street theatre, too.)

Over at cricinfo there is the complete and uncut Lawyer’s edition of what Lalit Modi said in response to the BCCi’s second show-cause notice.

I’ve read it, and somehow I survived.

It is really long. I obviously don’t like long. I like short. Like this sentence. Or this one.

But you still need to know what is says.

So here it is boiled down to twitter length nuggets.

“Giles thinks our shit is because of a personality clash. I think it is because he is a cunt.”

“Differences between Giles and me came in connection to me calling him a cunt, and him calling me a dodgy bastard.”

“I don’t give a fuck about some English idiot who can’t wear suits that fit, give me my league back.”

“Giles is a prick, but I made you millions and you guys are still giving me shit. That’s cold, dawg”.

“In this particular even I did nothing wrong, and here is 7417 words to prove this. Suckers.”

“I really am a good guy, trust me on that. You should give me my job back, or I’ll send more emails this long.”

There are probably really important details in his email, but that is the thing with things of this length, yawn.

Lalit is fighting for his career, and this is the email of someone fighting for his career.

The good thing about this conflict is you don’t have to pick sides, you can hate Giles and Lalit and then have a glass of mountain dew (or put Vodka in it and call it Goat’s piss).

As for the email, this is a hardcore apologia. Nerdy children should read this for when they want to get out breaking their mum’s vase in a mock indoor test match.

It isn’t the first apologia I’ve read in recent times, the last one was “written” by Ricky Ponting in the form of a diary.

Lalit and Ricky don’t like each other, but when it comes to explaining away why other people are in the wrong and they are in the right, both of them are very similar.  They write very long things that put me to sleep.

Maybe they aren’t so different. They should start a club.

How do you know your cricket community has gone to shit?

You burn a toy that relates to the wrong country.

If these Pakistanis had any pride in their effigy they’d burn Apu from the simpsons.

This is sloppy fucken work, and if I was the insane bastard in charge of a posse batshit crazy enough to burn things, I’d at least get the metaphors right.

I assume the group, Pakistani Unified Burnt Effigies Syndicate,  had this toy ready expecting Ponting to anally rape Yousuf at the toss, or start throwing shoes at Umar Akmal, and when he didn’t they had the Tassie Devil (a token character, as he hasn’t lived there in how long?) taking up space.

Someone probably said, what does Lalit Modi look like, and someone else said, a smug prick, the first dude probably said, Ricky Ponting is a smug prick.

See how easy these things can get out of hand.

What they need is strong leadership, is Shoaib Malik free?