Better to be lucky than good...

Well there’s plenty of transfer shenanigans on the board today as the window slowly creaks closed, but we’re ignoring the footy and dialling up our gloat gauge to max following England’s absolute thumping of South Africa last night, where we bowled them out for 83 or as it’s known colloquially in Croxley circles ‘a Fox score’*.

A great performance particularly from Stuart Broad who opened the door with a five wicket burst which was then barged wide open by The Fred and The Harminator. Even given the SAFs are looking a bit punch drunk and in danger of going off piste at the end of a long tour, it was still a great performance and a superb result.

England now look a pretty decent one day side, but it helps if you pick a balanced team and play the best man in each position. Selectors you appear to have listened.

Now we have to admit we had our misgivings about KP being named captain, but with three wins on the trot, he certainly seems to have the right stuff.

Nope not inspiring leadership, nor great tactical nouse and nuanced bowling and fielding changes, nor indeed the touchy touchy-feely approach he’s apparently taken to man management.

Nope, what KP has got in spades is luck and as the old saw goes and it’s always better to be lucky than good.

Let’s hope it holds out until around this time next year.


*Named after the lowly totals regularly achieved by the dear old Fox and Hounds, ‘The Worst Team in England’ as the Daily Torygraph once had it.

Pushing the boundaries...

...And so to Monday and back to the salt mines where we labour long and hard and are appreciated not...

Unlike Kevin KP Pietersen who’s splendid century set up an absolute romp of a victory for England in the ODI against the Kiwis yesterday. Arguably poor old neglected Owais Shah’s excellent 49 from 29 balls was as good, but it’s KP as usual who grabs all the headlines.

The reason this time though is his switch hitting which is an extension of the reverse sweep and was first unfurled against Mattiah Muralitharan a couple of years ago.

Basically as the bowler delivers, KP flips hands and stance so that he’s mirroring his usual one and almost playing a left hander’s shot and yesterday he tonked Scott Styris for two sixes in the most audacious manner.

It was phenomenal to watch and extremely exciting and of course this has naturally led traditionalists to mutter into their beards about whether it should be banned.

Now we’re all for preserving the traditions of the game, but in this case the nay sayers are wrong. Maybe a couple of other laws will need amending (which becomes legstump, how wides and LBW will work, field placings etc.) but in this case we should definitely encourage innovation, not punish it.

This is the kind of audacious stroke which absolutely lights up the shorter form of the game and is compelling to watch, even if it’ll just be for the comedy value of watching lesser batsman try to play it.

Modesty Forbids

Where we spurt others most surely follow and while modest forbids and all that, it was undoubtedly the Spurt wot done it with Wednesday’s fine upstanding column finally tipping the balance and ensuring Cristiano went public on his fondly held desire to head off to sunny Spain next season.

But enough of our triumphs and onto England’s. Ahem. Following yesterday utter disarray when our middle order made a Saturday night post pub kebab shop queue look orderly and well disciplined, it was down to good ol’ KP to rescue us with a thrilling century which not so much hauled the fat out of the fire, but shoved it to bottom the freezer and supercooled it for three months.

With a fine supporting act from diminutive Tim Ambrose it was the best last hope stand since a combined Welsh XI held off the Zulus at the Rorke’s Drift oval in 1879.

There’s been much talk of not changing a winning team, consistency of selection and backing players even if they’re totally out of form and couldn’t hit a ban door with a sledgehammer and to an extent that is true; to the extent that it’s absolute bollocks.

Not changing a winning team? If the Fred was fit he’d walk straight back in. End of.
Loyalty to players in a bad trot is fine up to a point but just like certain deranged evangelical Christians who went faced with a difficult dilemma ask ‘What would Jesus do?’, the cricketing equivalent is asking ‘what would the Aussies do?

The answer is drop Bell and Collingwood like a shot and bring in Ravi Bopara and poor neglected Owais Shah.

Toodle pip.

The Indian Premier League ...of evil

And so it begins... and what a difference a month makes. Was it just over one short rotation of the moon ago that Kevin Pietersen, our very own KP, him with the three lions tattooed on his shoulder, was loudly declaring to the Torygraph that he wouldn’t jeopardise his England future by signing up for the Indian Premier League?


Headlines like ‘KP rejects IPL’ and quotes like "...It's not something I'm particularly interested in ...Money's not really too important, it's not as if I need money right now. I'm really enjoying doing what I'm doing," would seem to have ruled KP out of any future IPL equation. It was heartening to see one of England’s premier stars publicly forsake the easy cash and make a stand on principle.

However clearly a month is a long time in cricket and talking to The Times via Sporting Life, KP has had a radical change of heart now insisting, “It's definitely something that the hierarchy needs to fix into our fixtures ...You want your best players playing for their country and for the IPL. You don't want them choosing between the two. It's silly to think that you're losing up to a million [dollars] over six weeks.”

Not as silly as playing in a meaningless Twenty20 thrash for a ton o’ cash, weeks before a vital home Ashes series though apparently.

Sometimes these things just write themselves.

Elsewhere in the world of cricket, former England quickie Andrew Caddick has declared erratic, misfiring spearhead erm lethal long levered assassin (oh, we give up delete as appropriate) Steve ‘the Harminator’ Harmison not fit for purpose. Ouch, saucer of milk down Taunton way please!