Crying Foul: A Tale of Two Counties and a Zealous ECB

The English are pissed off. They've been pissed off for a while now, but I haven't thought fit to comment on it. But I am now because it has a lot to do with Stuart Clark and I'm interested in what's happening with him at the moment.

It's all an issue of whether counties should allow Australian Test players to spend a considerable period of time in England, acclimatising to its dreary conditions, before the Ashes series. The counties probably do care whether the national side thrashes Australia in the Ashes, but they also care more about winning in the domestic tournament.

There's no way this issue is going to resolved in such a way that both parties are satisfied. The counties, such as Kent and Middlesex, who are employing Stuart Clark and Phil Hughes respectively, will either have to back down for a matter of possible national pride, or stand their ground and piss off the entire country. Let's face it, the English have every reason to be paranoid about these Australian players getting a feel of the country. They're favourites to lose, and everyone knows it. It becomes even more of an issue when we consider that Hughes, that midget who's so destructive when he gets into it, has never played in England before and is considerably nervous about how he'll handle the conditions.

You don't want to voluntarily give Hughes the advantage. In fact, you do what you can to make sure he doesn't get any advantage. You know what that involves? Well, not signing him up to have a few practice sessions in your country before the Ashes for one. Secondly, when he does get to England for the Ashes tour, you make his life a living hell.

You employ a burly man to follow him around everywhere and mysteriously vanish behind trees when Hughes tries to tell someone about his stalker.

You have the burly man send Hughes creepy threatening messages made of letters cut out of a newspaper, Hollywood-style.

You have the burly man appear at Hughes' hotel window in the middle of the night and press his face against the glass to terrify the shit out of Hughes.

You leave a cricket bat in two pieces on his bed for him to find when he comes back from training.

You call him and breathe into the phone heavily.

You just don't have a cup of tea and have him chat to a few English players, sneakily observing and finding faults in bowlers he might have to face. For all you know, Phil Hughes might be secretly evil and therefore willing to plot a plan of destruction against the English national team. He might be figuring out ways to injure Freddie, like "accidently" leaving a knife on the ground in his path.

You never know, so you prepare for the worst.

Evil or just REALLY SMALL?