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.

England v SAF series round up...

So it ended with a reasonably convincing England win at the Oval yesterday, but South Africa took the 2-1 series victory.

It’s been a difficult series to assess overall, particularly given we missed the decisive third test but we suspect it’s probably just about the right result and now the SAFs take over the mantle of the ‘side most likely to stuff the Aussies’.

It’s going to be a corker this winter, but where did it all go wrong for England? Well one word, ‘selection’. You’ve got to get the right team on the field for a start and virtually from the off, we simply didn’t do so.

From the confused selection of Pattinson, to the stubborn refusal to ice Ambrose, to just realising that you need a balanced side, to myriad other clangers, their were more howlers than a convocation of werewolves.

They say a series can hang on the smallest of details – but if you get the big ones wrong you simply don’t have a chance.

Perhaps most damage has been done with the resignation of Michael Vaughan, who though going through a bad trot, was still the best captain of recent years. Vaughan was a highly skilled all-rounder being both captain and batsman and the obvious solution to just drop down to the middle order simply didn’t happen.

But it’s done now and there’s no going back. As for KP? Well he’s certainly got the cojones, no doubt, already bullishly saying “Bring on the Aussies” but can he develop the all-round captaincy skills we’ll need to make a decent fist of it? We’ll see I guess.

In the meantime we’ve consoled ourselves with watching YouTube footage of amazing new Sri Lankan ‘mystery’ spinner Ajantha Mendis who’s an off-leg spinner with a mean doosra all in one...

As if Murali wasn’t enough, where on earth do Sri Lanka find them? And more importantly are you watching Monty?

We fear there’s trouble ahead...

Ooh we’ve just noticed there’s btw 100th post – a century all of our own! At last!

Who are ya?

Now we’re all for a bit of novelty as our occasional penchant for uni-cycling, fire-juggling, lady strippers attests, but England selectors, this morning you really are having the proverbial giraffe.

Darren who? Oh Pattinson…. a Grimsby born roofing artisan from Melbourne who’s played 11 first-class matches for Notts and was originally scheduled to take his progeny to Alton Towers today.

Okay he’s got a decent average and has been taking wickets by the hatful, but this has to be the most left field selection since Sharon Osbourne fronted up that one-off Girls Aloud gig when Cheryl Cole had a dodgy tum*.

Now we’ve had some unlikely names creep into the England reckoning over the years, Joey Benjamin, Martin McCague and Gavin Hamilton ub the debit ledger and even Marcus Trescothick was plucked out of obscurity before he went onto became England’s Banger and a mainstay of the side.

But Pattinson? That is truly and remarkably unusual and how will it make the queue of bowling worthies like Simon Jones, Chris Tremlett, Matthew Hoggard, and even Steve Harmison feel?

Duncan Fletcher used to get take stick for sticking by his guns, but this is a case of not so much as next cab off the rank, but as summoning the next cab from the outer orbit of Uranus.

He’ll probably take 40-7 now.

*This might have been a strange, unusual and fairly disturbing dream or we may just have made it up…

England v SAF final day...

So it’s day five of the first Test and with SAF sitting comfortably on 312-1 at lunch. the draw looks more certain than a Geordie bird six pints to the good.

Of course the SAF’s have done well but the pitch has run true to form and been more placid than a pensioner on Prozac. Yet is it has also pointed towards a real lack of true firepower and penetration in the England attack, perhaps vindicating Duncan Fletcher’s long held view that you must have real pace or world class spin to force the pace on these benign featherbeds.

The return of the Fred is palpable and almost inevitable now as we whistle up our one true World Class performer – but who should he replace and how will it affect the balance of the side? There’s a few imponderables like is Ryan Sidebottom fit and if not, in comes Simon Jones/Chris Tremlett depending on the Headingley pitch.

Bell also goes up to three and Vaughan down to five so here’s our XI to face the SAFs on Friday....

Cook
Strauss
Bell
KP
Vaughan
Flintoff
Prior
Broad
Sidebottom/ Simon Jones/ Chris Tremlett
Anderson
Panesar