The Stanford Redemption

Morgan Freeman would not be proud of what I have just done. Which is why I will make this short and sharp and FAST because the material is hysterical.

Allen Stanford (or "Sir" Allen Stanford as you folks who respect him in the slightest like to say) has been arrested in the US after he surrendered, the silly bugger. All that fraud and he thought he'd get away. Apparently the surrender went down a little something like this:

He had surrendered "to some FBI agents who were hiding out in black SUVs outside the residence where he was staying in Virginia". He walked out and asked if they had a warrant. Stanford told the agents to arrest him if they had a warrant, but if they did not have a warrant, he would go back to Houston to turn himself in.

A Ponzi scheme? "Nah," he says. Then a few moments later, "Okay, yes, maybe."

Allen Stanford, you will live on in the hearts of the ridiculous. The cricketing world always loved your style. And I will refrain from making a Matt Prior-related joke here, really I will. Because I have remarkable self-restraint and I BET MATTY'S WIFE ISN'T ALL TOO HAPPY ABOUT THIS.

Okay. I couldn't stop myself, so sue me.

The stickiest wicket of all.

Russell Kane on ECB cliches

You folks never give me a chance to read your comments before I head out for the day. Never fear, because Russell Kane is here to liven up everyone's day. This is a segment taken from an SBS show 'The Squiz', which is basically a sports quiz. And in this clip, funny man Kane is made to give a speech by the ECB explaining why England have had 7 captains in 2 years or something.

It's pretty shoddy quality video, I can't believe it's even uploaded, but the cliches he's supposed to work into his speech are a laugh:

England doing something very strange

I believe it's called winning. Sure, it's against the West Indies, but they're still winning.

What is the magic formula? Why this great form going into a rather important series?

I'm very interested. I think I might even like it if England were supremely confident ahead of the Ashes. But there's always the T20 thing between now and then to shake things up a little and perhaps disturb morale within the team.

It's even more strange because Stuart Broad recently came out with some comments about England needing to learn to fill Flintoff's shoes when he wasn't there, because he isn't a lot of the time. You wouldn't have thought a 9 year old could be so wise, but it's true. He talked some sense, people. He said what every blogger has been thinking, though not the ECB.

And so Andrew Strauss isn't going to be playing in the domestic T20 Cup either. He's really gearing up for the Ashes. Confidence in the English team is probably soaring.

I like it.

The Middle East goes Stanford

Oh the hilarity. The ECB has rejected three offers to play in the infamous one-off matches the very criminal Allen Stanford financed last year. And this time, it's the owners of petrodollars looking to strike a shady deal with the ECB:

The origin of the offers has not been revealed, although it is understood at least one came from the Middle East.

I do believe it would be just perfect if there was an oil tycoon behind this, but then that'd be a little stereotypical now, wouldn't it?

Don't care. Onward with the oil barons looking to organise their own Sheikh's Superstars XI, and going on to beat England with that same team.

No bars - the future of cricket.

England's Worst Nightmares Come True

Phil Hughes has been keeping notes on England's bowlers... and Andrew Strauss.

Already, national selectors are crying out in outrage, demanding Middlesex hire a hitman to get rid of Hughes before he gets to the WAG training camp and passes on this secret information to Ponting. The ECB had dispatched Andre Nel to do the dirty work for them, but he failed, having had an attack of the Gunther which rendered him unable to come within 5 metres of Phil Hughes without being repelled by a powerful magnetic force.

So it's up to Middlesex, or this little fellow will be spilling the beans in a highly competitive Ashes year. Because England's fears weren't irrational from the start, right? Clearly Middlesex were out to fuck up the national team's chances of beating Australia.

From SMH, in an article which slightly takes the piss out of the poms:

"I'll be talking to the boys about a few things that happened over there. The second championship game we played, I got to meet him [Strauss] a couple of days before the game, and then we got to bat together for nearly a whole day. We spent a fair bit of time together."

You see that? He'll be talking to the boys. Better get him in a "freak accident" on the banana farm before it's too late.

"Thing is, though, and no one has even mentioned it, I batted with him for so long, I got the chance to look at him, too."

The only question that remains is, when will Geoff Miller get on Middlesex's case about this if he hears about it? And will the Wing Commander come out with a few comments of his own relating to having observed Hughes for a lengthy period of time? Questions, questions, questions.

Also, be sure to catch the interview with Phil on Sunday Night. I saw the previews for it and it looks horrifying.

Bitter Owais Shah Looks For Revenge

Mesmerising everyone with his rather large eyes, Owais Shah is out for revenge against the ECB. The place to start is defending his county's decision to take on Phil Hughes prior to the Ashes. For the unitiated, the best way to do this is to remove one of England's possible avenues for excuse if they happen to lose the Ashes series. Here's how you do it, Owais-style:

"I don't think you can say that because this one guy has come in and played with us for six or seven weeks, it's going to tip the Ashes in their favour or our favour. It runs deeper than that."

He continued, "In fact, you're only going to lose the series if your number 3 is an incompetent asshole, so we'd better hope England doesn't have one like that, eh?" Oh Shah, I know where you're going with this. It's alright, we understand. Ravi's not going into hiding either, he knows what a great person you are.

Meanwhile, it turns out Kevin Pietersen's Achilles' heel is in fact his Achilles tendon. Apparently he'd "disappointed" he won't get to play the Windies in the ODI series. Bullshit, he's the luckiest guy on the team and I think everyone knows it. Wouldn't Strauss just love to skip this pointless contest against a country they don't particularly rate, having now jumped their way to 5 in the ICC Test ratings.

On the other hand, England could very much want to play this series against WI. It's been a while since they've won anything for an extended period of time. Plus, it'll boost their career figures a little, particularly for the newer players. Wouldn't a 5-for do Tim Bresnan a whole lot of good ahead of his fight with Freddie for a place in England's side. Some fight that'll be.

"VOT?!"

Drilling Holes in Bats

GoodCricketWicket is onto a story that is possibly the funniest I've heard in a while.

A Lancashire captain bought 8 new bats while on a club cricket tour of Pakistan, and decided to have them shipped back to England. Sounds fine, except for the fact that an overzealous customs feared there might have been bombs inside those bats so decided the only thing to do was investigate by drilling holes into the bats.

It wasn't just the suspicious looking bats which may or may not have declared a jihad on the Queen while sitting in storage, but also some very terrifying pads sporting pictures of Osama bin Laden glued onto them. Off went customs, drilling holes into the pads too.

All the equipment was brand new.

"I bought the cricket bats in Lahore and each one cost me 8,000 rupees (£67). The total came to £475. The bats and pads arrived on April 15 and I was shocked to find they had holes drilled into the front of them."

Even better is the blaming that's going on:

"I rang Pakistan and they said UK authorities had made the holes. When I rang the UK office they said Pakistan had done it."

Evil bastards.

Reportedly a very hush-hush deal was made with the ECB, who expressed an interest in buying the bats and sending them off to Middlesex as part of a "surprise gift package for Phillip Hughes". Around the same time the transaction was made, a whole lot of wood putty went missing from a nearby hardware store.

Interesting. I wonder why.

Oops.

Of Gorillas And Money

Oink if this somehow rings true to you.

Where could $100 take me in life? Would it be worth selling my soul to the ECB? Or to primates?

To ape or not to ape. That is the question.

I'm going against the grain and posting this. Nobody said anything about secrecy. I remain an Australian at heart, sabotaging English plans at will. We've been taught to do it from a very early age.

AB takes Delhi to watch rugby

Apparently he thinks they'll be interested.

"We didn't do much off the field in Durban so now that we're in my home town on Saturday, I'm taking them to the big one, Loftus Versveld, for the Bulls' Super 14 match against the Western Force. We'll see how that goes!"

Probably went terribly. Gambhir wandered off and tried to prove his manhood once more with a couple of hot 40 year olds, Dilshan found himself converting to Rastafarianism, Sangwan burst into tears when everyone kept calling him "someone", Yo Mahesh rediscovered himself as a hip hop artist, Colly shaved his hair off and tried to smash Dan's glasses, Warner went around collecting volunteers who were willing to let him on for a stint at fielding, and Dirk... well, you don't even want to know what happened with Dirk.

Owais Shah didn't even go. He cried himself to sleep in his hotel room after receiving a call from the ECB.

How To Win The Ashes - Part 2

England hand it to us on a plate.

England's West Indies Test squad: Andrew Strauss (capt), James Anderson, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Graham Onions, Monty Panesar, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior (wk), Graeme Swann

Ravi Bopara muscles in on the Number 3 spot which was looking to be Ian Bell, Michael Vaughan or Owais Shah's pick. KP has somehow managed to avoid the spot altogether and made it look as though he was never having to consider playing at 3 to save face for England.

Graham Onions and Tim Bresnan are about to debut, but I'm sure Onions will have a stinker of a match. Geoff Miller's explanation behind these two selections was that

"They've bowled very, very well pre-season and they've bowled very well in the early part of the season. We need to find strong backup and one or two other seam bowlers who are of international quality and these two have out-bowled the others so they get their chance."

Onions is reportedly very pleased.

The ECB have done some good in leaving out Bell and Vaughan, but will you just look at the squad? The Ashes squad will be mostly similar, perhaps dropping some of the debutants, and with the inclusion of Freddie. None of those players going to the Windies look great. Maybe Strauss is on a roll, but honestly, who are they kidding? Hats off to not living in the past (i.e. 2005) and going with all those old fellows, but word is the Scots are already calling it shite.

Miller is excited about this new squad, and he thinks it's going to take England to great heights and open up closed shops and things like that. Didn't understand what that meant? Neither did I:

"I think it's exciting, we've been designated as a closed shop for some time now and this just shows to county cricketers that we are not a closed shop and we are prepared to open it up."

I'm sure I'm not the only person who didn't find that analogy all that great.

Monty will be opening up their shop.

Freddie, Freddie, Freddie

What the fuck, not another injury. It's his knee. Torn meniscus which now requires keyhole surgery. The ECB think he'll be out of the game for 3 to 5 weeks. Hugh Morris is onto it, already prepared with a list of reasons why this isn't such a big deal:

"Andrew has been extremely unlucky with injuries but if there is one saving grace it is that the injury has occurred now rather than on the eve of either the ICC World Twenty20 or the Ashes."

So England breathe a sigh of relief. He'll be there for the Ashes. They'll need him, especially after little midgets are going around hitting centuries in their domestic tournament. But with Freddie, England's chances of beating a rubbish Aussie team are a little higher.

KP is also weighing in on the issue:

"I didn't know about it (injury). I saw him bowling last night but it is a huge, huge blow come the summer in England."

A huge, huge blow.

Chennai will be glad to see the back of Freddie.

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?

Strauss reckons he's shit

Not in those words exactly, but that's the general gist of it. England's second favourite captain (no prizes for guessing who the first is) is quite emphatic when he says he doesn't wish to play in the World Twenty20 tournament. Well, not "wish to" because of course he'd play for his country if they wanted him to, but Andrew is so darn selfless he urged the ECB to forego him:

"I believe quite strongly that I'm not in the best 11 Twenty20 players in the country and therefore it would be wrong to captain the side. I said I felt it was right they look for someone else to lead the side and the selectors felt very similarly so it was very much a mutual thing."

"The selectors felt very similarly". That almost sounds embarrassing. In fact, the first things that come to mind are a dozen different embarrassing scenarios in which Strauss talks to the ECB about opting to stay out of the team:

Strauss: I've had a long, hard think about this, and I've made up my mind.

Member of ECB: Do go on! Meanwhile, I will smoke on my pipe.

Strauss: This is my final decision. Nothing anyone says can make me change my mind. I know it may hurt the England team but it's for the best.

Member of ECB: Poppycock!

Strauss: ...

Member of ECB: Sorry, I was just practising my English mannerisms.

Strauss: Anyway, I've considered all the possibilities and I know this will diappoint many people, least of all you, but I'm willing to make the sacrifice for the good of England.

Member of ECB: Bonkers!

Strauss: So I've decided I can't captain the team for the T20 World Cup. I'm just not good enough to make the cut.

Member of ECB: ...

Strauss: I know what you're thinking. "Oh poppycock, tea, smoking on my pipe! You've gone bonkers! Whatever will England do without you?" and I've also thought about my response. England will do brilliantly. We've had a tough time of it recently, especially after Kevin fucked up everything with his captaincy, but I think England will pull through without me.

Member of ECB: Good sir, I am in complete agreement with you! We could certainly do without you! England has plenty of strapping gentlemen ready to pick up the bat to make our Queen proud.

Strauss: ...Right. Well...

Member of ECB: In fact, I'd even go as far to say you're a bloody useless T20 player. Comparatively, of course.

Strauss: Yes. Okay. Good to agree on this.

Member of ECB: Toodles.

Poor Andrew. He thought he was the martyr, but the ECB upstaged him.

"Kev, you need me, right? The team needs me, right?"