cricket with balls

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The ICC has its test rankings involving numbers and nerds.  Not Interested.  So I came up with my own.  They mean nothing, but neither do the ICCs and mine took less time.  They also aren’t numbered for a reason, because that would be stupid.   You can date the bottom girl on this list (actually make that second bottom) and have a great time, and perhaps have a shit time with the second lady.

Natalie Portman –

There is no outstanding test side at the moment, so no one gets the Portman from me.

Kate Winslet – India

Capable of great things, clever, classy and hot.  But how many really cool films has Winslet been in?  Has the potential to be the perfect partner, but would it kill her to be a curvy sexy ninja in a Rodriguez flick?  Best of the bunch at the moment, but still has improvement in her.

Suicide girls – South Africa

They are hot, edgy and look great in photo shoots. When you are seeing a midnight showing of Donnie Darko they are the ideal partner, but leave them up to their own good and, well, they aren’t called the suicide girls for nothing.  Do you want to spend your time hiding the razors?

Cute girl on the train – Australia

It seems like a great idea, but what do you know about the cute girl on the train.  Sure, she likes Palahniuk, is wearing a cwb t-shirt and seems to be listening to Coltrane, but she could be nuts.  Cuteness and good taste in popular culture are important, but for every hip thing about her, there will be something you don’t know about, like how she breeds rats to kill them while you have sex with her.  She could turn out great, but she could be bi-polar.

Ellen Page – Sri Lanka

Has raw natural cuteness and talent.  Yet is still a little odd looking.  Not in a bad way, but from certain angles you question yourself.  Your main concern is her never-ending journey to be the coolest person in the room, we get it Ellen, just stop being a wanker for 5 minutes and be in an adult movie.

Plain girl in the office – England

Easy to overlook, but could be the one.  Obviously not as attractive as movie stars or with the hipster taste of the cute girl on the train, but suits you better than most.  Can you really afford to shun her just because she wears cardigans?  Although it must be said, she is not a good cook.

Brody Dalle – West Indies

Rock and roll.  Big highs, but scary lows.  There is something that draws you in, you’re not sure what, and it could be illegal, but she is supercool and has access to free drugs and booze.  Might only keep you around for a short time, but it could be fun.  Until the come down.

A chick on roller skates with bright pink hair in pigtails – Pakistan

She looks awesome, but she wears roller skates. That isn’t safe, what if she is rolling up to you and she falls headfirst onto your lap.  That wouldn’t be good.  The wow factor wouldn’t be any good when you have been hit in the nuts, and if you are hurt bad and you need medical supplies, the girl with the roller skates cannot be trusted.  Practically roller skates are always going to end in tears.

Joan Cusack – New Zealand

Not conventionally attractive that is true, but funny, and who would try harder.  The laughs will get you through. Sure she has a relative way more better looking and richer, but he is a dude.  Could be a keeper, because if you stay with Joan you’d have funny intelligent chirpy moderately successful children, although watch out for twins.

Your mate’s teen sister – Bangladesh

Dude, she isn’t even legal.  Look away.  But check back in three or four years, just in case.

Today Dilshan made 195 runs.

The scorecard, however, says only 109.

The rest of the runs go to a cricketer who this very website has questioned the existence of.

The obvious reason was that Dilshan’s last 86 runs were so mindfuckingly spectacular that if we really saw them, it would have blown our little minds.

Instead, yet again, our collective conscious chose to invent this Mathews.

Before that Dilshan was good, but not so good that it would destroy our minds.

The “Mathews innings” was good, eye catching and important, but in the end it was safe enough that we could except its reality.

Regardless of all this Fake Angelo Mathews nonsense, this test is poised perfectly.

Sri Lanka’s scoring rate and India’s constant wickets have meant that this game can go either way, which is about all you can ask for in a deciding test after the first day.

If Angelo existed, he would agree.

I didn’t consciously ignore the SL V India test match.

There were times i watched it live, and others i followed via replays.

But every time I went to write something down I dozed off.

Batting is great, but when you are watching batsmen take on beaten men who know their best chance of taking wickets is taking a crowbar to the batsmen, what is the point.

That is why i ignored it.

I don’t blame the batsmen who cashed in, but why would i want to watch a glorified net?

You know when you have that dream that you are the most Awesomest thing alive.

Either you are a rockstar with men throwing their boxer shorts on stage, a boxer with old white Jewish writers saying you are better than Ali or some politician that fixes the world and also fights off evil aliens.

Everyone has the dream where they are cool.

Well channel that, are you there yet, are you awesome in your imagination.

Good.

Now think of Dilshan’s batting of late.

Be honest, is your imaginary character as cool as he is.

No, ofcourse not.

How could it be?

Dilshan is some sort of Steve McQueen/Angela Davis/Bruce Lee/Ned Kelly hybrid at the moment.

Cooler than Ice, Harder than Nails, tastier than a quick burger.

He is like some sort of souped-up super-pimp crime-fighting freedom-fighting bastard straight from hell.

And now he has a beard, how can your imagination beat this?

The dilscoop starfish thing.

The wearing a hat while batting.

The open chest surrounded by bling.

And everything else that he brings to the game of cricket.

All he needs is a Rolls Royce made of Gold, an ivory walking stick and cricket would have to crown him the grand poobah of batting.

What happened?

Not that long ago he was a middle order struggler who never really did enough and had a pretty ordinary record.

Now he is the dog’s bollocks, the cat’s pyjamas, the moose’s caboose.

On one level I want to know how this struggling dude made it to the top of the mountain.

But on the other hand, fuck it.

Let us just enjoy this gift of awesomeness that has surely been delivered by our God of Sehwagology.

Amen, Dilshan, Amen.

He is Ian Bishop’s favourite player.

His name implies he is some sort of Italian Welsh dockworker.

And he comes across as some sort of Shane Watson prototype except without the mental baggage and jellybean body.

He just isn’t real.

I am sorry to break this illusion, but Angelo Mathews does not exist.

Sri Lanka has a team full of amazing dudes.

King Kumar, coolest motherfucker out there.
Murali, keeper of the record.
Malinga, with the sling and hair.
Mendis, magic fingers.
Sanath, the swashbuckling old man of the ODI.
Dilshan, pimpin’ the scoop.
Samaraweera, the bastard got shot.

All these dudes are match winners and are memorable in one way or another.

They all have a presence. Samaraweera and Dilshan both have gangsta limps for fucks sake.

You expect them to make an impact, you know how to feel about them winning a game of cricket.

Mathews is different.

It isn’t his fault.

He just doesn’t seem to have any reasons to recognise he actually exists.

And I was there when he destroyed the Windies in the world 2020 thingy.

I saw it, with my eyes.

But I was clever enough to look beyond the reality.

Nothing he has ever done has felt real to me.

So I have a theory.

He does not actually exist, he is a construct.

With a team with so much players capable of freakish acts of awesomeness our brains could no longer process it all.

Our brains had to make something that explained the phenomena of Sri Lanka.

So a medium fast not so special looking bowler who bats pretty well without being that explosive or eye catching was created.

It makes sense really.

Our collective unconscious has created this man.

So now when Kumar or Dilshan play a lusty innings, and our minds can’t handle it, we see Angelo Mathews on the scorecard.

If Malinga or Murali bowl so well that the batsmen appear to be on converyor belts, it is Mathews who our eyes see before us.

Ofcourse you might have not seen his name, to you he may not exist.

It could just be my head coming up with this Angelo character and the rest of you can’t see him.

Or maybe he does exist for real.

I doubt it though.