Just as a random midweek tit-bit, for no purpose whatsoever, a starting XI of my favourite international cricketers.
So many sportsmen are so very bland, as to think that they may well have offered up their personalities in some sort of diabolical pact, in return for sporting glory. This is no rag-bag XI, but neither does it necessarily include ‘the Best’, rather it is those current players who have just that little bit of something about them.
I) Alastair Cook (England)
Proper opening batsman. In full-flow, more elegant than a Mozart string quartet.
II) Mathew Hayden (Australia)
Brutal biffmeister, walks at fast bowlers – excellent.
III) Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka & Warwickshire)
Pure and utter class. Better than Ricky Ponting.
IV) Kevin Pietersen (England)
Right handed? Left handed? Anything you like really.
V) Shiv Chanderpaul (West Indies)
Need quick wickets? Oh bugger here comes Shiv…
VI) Dwayne Bravo (West Indies)
Batting, bowling, fielding, is there nothing he can’t do better than the rest of the West Indies? Also has the best name in world sport.
VII) Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India)
Unfairly tagged as a bit of a slogger early on, actually a very, very astute cricketer, oh yeah, and 5000 people once followed him to the hair dressers…
VIII) Brett Lee (Australia)
Top man – Always plays hard and always plays fair.
IX) Andre Nel (South Africa)
Perfectly nice chap off the field, deranged on it. Has alter-ego called ‘Gunter’ who ‘has something wrong with his mind’ and ‘lives in Germany’. Andre Nel is not a well man.
X) Sohail Tanvir (Pakistan)
Bizarrely bowls off the wrong foot, which looks hilarious but he will probably need every joint in his body replacing after he retires. Beard designed by Desperate Dan.
XI) Monty Panesar (England)
Celebrates wickets like a drunken school girl country dancing. Can’t bat. Fielding getting worse. Legend.
And as night follows day and as Bangladesh follow on, here’s an XI of players with whom I would no more want to share the field of play than share a bath.
I) Graeme Smith (South Africa)
Standing in the slips shouting ‘you’re gay’ at the batsman is about as funny as knife crime.
II) Phil Jaques (Australia)
I can’t think of another opening batsman that I really hate (mainly because most teams seem to get through them like most Americans get through doughnuts), so it had to be an Australian by default.
III) Ricky Ponting (Australia)
Best batsman of his generation? Certainly. But as captain also a brazen cheat who is always the first to point the finger when another team breaches the ‘Spirit of Cricket’. Even the Australian public think he’s a c**t.
IV) Sourav Ganguly (India)
He was hated at Lancashire, useless at Northants (batting avg. 4). Lord Snooty is probably the most obnoxious man ever to set foot on a cricket field, but at least we can laugh at him for his fielding.
V) AB de Villiers (South Africa)
No, no, no – of course you ‘thought’ you’d caught it cleanly.
VI) Andrew Symonds (Australia)
‘Yeah – I hit it, ho ho ho’. Twat.
VII) Kamran Akmal (Pakistan)
Can’t bat. Can’t keep wicket. All topped off with that nausea-inducing, whining voice. ‘BOWLING DANNY!!’ he cries, even after six consecutive full-tosses have been dispatched to the boundary.
VIII) Ryan Sidebottom (England)
Miserable bastard. Always shouting at fielders when they make the slightest error (or in Monty’s case – catastrophic error), because Sidebottom never makes any mistakes – oh no, of course not.
IX) Shanthakumaran Sreesanth (India)
Absolute first-class burk. Tries to do the hard-man staring and swearing routine, then gets slapped by Harbhajan after an IPL game and promptly, and very publicly, bursts into tears. You’re not kidding anyone mate.
X) Shoaib Ahktar (Pakistan)
Total disaster of a sportsman. Probable drug-cheat. Certain cricket cheat – ‘hyper-extension’ of the elbow my arse. Has missed more games than he has played through suspension and injury. The only thing he deserves from the cricketing world is the hyper-extension of its proverbial middle finger.
XI) Mohammed Asif (Pakistan)
Makes Shoaib Ahktar look like ICC Player of the Year. Banned and then inexplicably un-banned for doping along with Mr Ahktar, busted in Dubai for carrying drugs and then mysteriously un-busted, now just about to be banned again for, yup, you guessed it, DRUGS! Seriously Mohammed, are you a moron? And to think he is supposedly one of the most exciting cricketers around. What a waste.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
Sallust 'Jugurthine War,' 41 B.C.
Roman historian & politician (86 BC - 34 BC)
So many sportsmen are so very bland, as to think that they may well have offered up their personalities in some sort of diabolical pact, in return for sporting glory. This is no rag-bag XI, but neither does it necessarily include ‘the Best’, rather it is those current players who have just that little bit of something about them.
I) Alastair Cook (England)
Proper opening batsman. In full-flow, more elegant than a Mozart string quartet.
II) Mathew Hayden (Australia)
Brutal biffmeister, walks at fast bowlers – excellent.
III) Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka & Warwickshire)
Pure and utter class. Better than Ricky Ponting.
IV) Kevin Pietersen (England)
Right handed? Left handed? Anything you like really.
V) Shiv Chanderpaul (West Indies)
Need quick wickets? Oh bugger here comes Shiv…
VI) Dwayne Bravo (West Indies)
Batting, bowling, fielding, is there nothing he can’t do better than the rest of the West Indies? Also has the best name in world sport.
VII) Mahendra Singh Dhoni (India)
Unfairly tagged as a bit of a slogger early on, actually a very, very astute cricketer, oh yeah, and 5000 people once followed him to the hair dressers…
VIII) Brett Lee (Australia)
Top man – Always plays hard and always plays fair.
IX) Andre Nel (South Africa)
Perfectly nice chap off the field, deranged on it. Has alter-ego called ‘Gunter’ who ‘has something wrong with his mind’ and ‘lives in Germany’. Andre Nel is not a well man.
X) Sohail Tanvir (Pakistan)
Bizarrely bowls off the wrong foot, which looks hilarious but he will probably need every joint in his body replacing after he retires. Beard designed by Desperate Dan.
XI) Monty Panesar (England)
Celebrates wickets like a drunken school girl country dancing. Can’t bat. Fielding getting worse. Legend.
And as night follows day and as Bangladesh follow on, here’s an XI of players with whom I would no more want to share the field of play than share a bath.
I) Graeme Smith (South Africa)
Standing in the slips shouting ‘you’re gay’ at the batsman is about as funny as knife crime.
II) Phil Jaques (Australia)
I can’t think of another opening batsman that I really hate (mainly because most teams seem to get through them like most Americans get through doughnuts), so it had to be an Australian by default.
III) Ricky Ponting (Australia)
Best batsman of his generation? Certainly. But as captain also a brazen cheat who is always the first to point the finger when another team breaches the ‘Spirit of Cricket’. Even the Australian public think he’s a c**t.
IV) Sourav Ganguly (India)
He was hated at Lancashire, useless at Northants (batting avg. 4). Lord Snooty is probably the most obnoxious man ever to set foot on a cricket field, but at least we can laugh at him for his fielding.
V) AB de Villiers (South Africa)
No, no, no – of course you ‘thought’ you’d caught it cleanly.
VI) Andrew Symonds (Australia)
‘Yeah – I hit it, ho ho ho’. Twat.
VII) Kamran Akmal (Pakistan)
Can’t bat. Can’t keep wicket. All topped off with that nausea-inducing, whining voice. ‘BOWLING DANNY!!’ he cries, even after six consecutive full-tosses have been dispatched to the boundary.
VIII) Ryan Sidebottom (England)
Miserable bastard. Always shouting at fielders when they make the slightest error (or in Monty’s case – catastrophic error), because Sidebottom never makes any mistakes – oh no, of course not.
IX) Shanthakumaran Sreesanth (India)
Absolute first-class burk. Tries to do the hard-man staring and swearing routine, then gets slapped by Harbhajan after an IPL game and promptly, and very publicly, bursts into tears. You’re not kidding anyone mate.
X) Shoaib Ahktar (Pakistan)
Total disaster of a sportsman. Probable drug-cheat. Certain cricket cheat – ‘hyper-extension’ of the elbow my arse. Has missed more games than he has played through suspension and injury. The only thing he deserves from the cricketing world is the hyper-extension of its proverbial middle finger.
XI) Mohammed Asif (Pakistan)
Makes Shoaib Ahktar look like ICC Player of the Year. Banned and then inexplicably un-banned for doping along with Mr Ahktar, busted in Dubai for carrying drugs and then mysteriously un-busted, now just about to be banned again for, yup, you guessed it, DRUGS! Seriously Mohammed, are you a moron? And to think he is supposedly one of the most exciting cricketers around. What a waste.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
Sallust 'Jugurthine War,' 41 B.C.
Roman historian & politician (86 BC - 34 BC)
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