"We were only joking"

"Can't you take a bit of a joke, everyone?" asks Collingwood at the press conference after the shock loss to the Netherlands.

"We were just having a laugh," Broad tells reporters. "Jimmy thought it'd be funny to give the Dutch fellows a win and take it from there."

"Graeme and Kevin were at home blowing up party balloons to celebrate the planned loss to the Netherlands," Colly continues. "Straussy was over too. They were watching the match on telly and having a bit of a laugh."

"That expression on my face?" Stuart is surprised. "Oh, at the end? Which one was it again?" The reporters oblige him.

"Oh, that," Broad says as he views the photograph. "Completely planned."

Beside him, Collingwood nods. "Completely planned. Bring on the Pakistani boys, I say."

Cultivating England's Hunger

It almost sounds disturbing, doesn't it? As if 'Eye of the Tiger' should be the soundtrack to this "cultivation" of England's hunger, accompanied by a montage of the Brit boys training for the biggest Test series of their lives.

What am I talking about? You will soon know. Andrew Strauss, having just won a ridiculous 2 Test series against the Windies 2-0, has this to say about his boys:

"If you look at the way the guys are practising at the moment, there's a real hunger to improve - and we need to cultivate that and make sure it grows and grows."

...and grows and grows and grows.

But the only truly creepy comment made was by Jimmy Anderson about England's 7 year old player. I am speaking of none other than Stuart Broad of course. Because not only does Jimmy acknowledge that Broad's biological age is actually 22 (I maintain it is in the single digits, however), but he also has a rather terrifying claim:

"[Broad] has a 30-year-old's head on his shoulders."

I hope I am not the only person who immediately visualised a bobblehead toy of Broad featuring an excessively large head as is the bobblehead way.

Of course he's hit puberty, idiots. That is in no way the face of a pre-pubescent boy.

The Curse of the Nightwatchman

Centuries ago, in a small village in the highlands of Guatemala, a witch woman uttered the words to a curse which would plague one Kevin Pietersen in centuries to come.

You send your nightwatchman in, you don't make your half-century.

It's not Jimmy's fault. Maybe if you'd actually batted instead of sending him in while you sipped tea and had a jolly good time in the dressing rooms, you wouldn't have gotten out on 49.

Anyway, England are 6/569 at tea. At this rate, they'll actually declare. It's been a while since they've convincingly done that. Stuart Broad is playing like this is a one-dayer.

And yes, the news is that England have declared. Well done to them.