How to Escape the Ashes- Ricky Presents

Ricky finds himself in an unsurmountable dilemma.
He's about to become the most targeted Aussie captain on earth after Australia lose the Ashes (doesn't seem to be a probability any longer) so he had to devise several legal ways of not playing the Ashes anymore. That, or Walt Disney is going to offer him a role in the next Narnia film. (I'm really helping him out only, he's worried about jobs once he's fired.)

There are four ways, some he's used up, but there are a few chances still left.

Break your finger Highly self-sacrificing, but extremely effective. Unfortunately, Ricky went all crackpotty of a sudden and decided that maybe if he played with a broken finger he could become a hero like Boofus Biff. Didn't work.

Be A Good Boy and Pray to Santa Ricky thought it'd work. Christmas time was a time of miracles and happiness, so instead of vitamins and Valvoline, he requested Santa a win for the Boxing Day Test. But poor Ricky had forgotten he hadn't been a good boy at all this year...

Assault the Umpire and Get Banned Ingenious tactic employed by Ricky today, but he didn't know the bastard Match Referee would spoil it all. He was the naughty boy, he heard Figjam's nick through supersonic ears, and Aleem Dar was the criminal. So Ricky foulmouthed him a bit, showed top-class grumpiness, and yet was only fined. ONLY FINED cried Ricky. Not even one ban. Hopeless.

Run Away The most ancient yet useful method- if the bad is coming your way, you run away from it. Zulqy Haider knows it damn well.

"Couldn't you have pretended to be more offended? Idiotic cool cucumber."

Chris Gayle didn't really deserve that Triple

For some reasons, I think Chris Gayle was not the right bloke to get a second triple ton.

See, let's say as a kid you have an old-fashioned sugar aunt who visits regularly on the first Sunday of every month. You don't like her because she's slightly old and senile, pinches your cheeks, regurgitates the pastor's sermons, wears droopy shawls and smells of some weird repugnant Parisian cologne.

Worst of all, you're expected to sit there with her all the morning like a neatly combed pup and listen to her endless prattle. Which is why you pray to God the Yeti will one day come to kidnap her, tear her into smithereens and then devour her. Yum, yum. Okay, that's disgusting, but let's agree that these are naughty bad thoughts, particularly when you consider how many gifts Aunty gives.

Ah yes, she isn't a parsimonious prick, she brings you delicious meringues, cookies and chocolates everytime she comes, yet you loathe her despite her trying to be actually nice to you. Shame on you bastard.

So basically Chris Gayle doesn't like his sugar aunt Test cricket because she isn't cool like Uncle T20, yet he shamelessly takes the many gifts she brings. Oolala, the only dude to have two triples looks cool, he says. And yet he wont love Aunty Test.

So there, he didn't really deserve it this way. The other he of course did, because he scored the runs himself.

Now try to make sense out of all of this. You should.

Cartoon: The Flight of Zulqi

No mention so far from me on all the brouhaha going on about Zulqy, Pakistan's comparatively nicer wicky, running away. I've only got a cartoon, which may not make too much sense.

If you're a clever buddy, you will be able to figure out the bloke with the red eyes is upto something really bad and the bloke with the watery ones upto something really noble.

Ijaz Butt skating on Pakistan cricket's Ice Rink

Opening Cricinfo's article today about Ijaz Butt, the first thing that caught my attention was this line saying "how thin the ice is that the Pakistan board is currently skating on."
I immediately picturised a weird image which I bothered to draw.

The ice is thin, the man skating on it is heavy, and nothing looks hopeful.

When the Gunther was nearly gone

Andre Nel can't stay out of the headlines despite getting retired. And this time it isn't the typical story of his evil Gunther going berserk and consequently cannoning spitballs at opponents, it's one where the Gunther tried to kill Nel himself. Yes, he attempted to commit suicide but failed.

Not funny.

Nel/Gunther and suicide don't fit quite together. No person for that matter, but Nel in particular not. He'd seem more like the bloke who'd be able to run suicide therapies or become a Samaritan's worker, running all over the world and snatching the nooses from people's necks.

No, he didn't put the knife that way.

So Nel, what you did before the suicide might have been an utterly senseless and stupid thing to do, and some media folks might be worse than stinking hounds, but suicide? No please.

And now I just read that a buddy of notorious fixer Mazhar Majeed commmited suicide. Suicide appearing twice in cricket in three days is just not good. Not good at all.

It's Australia vs India. It's Epic.

It's those times of the year again when India will be playing Australia. Or Australia playing India.
Cricinfo tells you to 'whet your appetite' for this fantastic contest because this is going to more epic than Mickey Mouse killing Goliath. How many double tons will Tendulkar score? How many more times will Bhajji get Punter's wicket? Will Roy appear from beneath the pitch with his super human abducting machine and take his best friend to the Planet of Apes? Will we see Matthew Hayden in the commentary box?

Don't get too ahead of yourselves. Bhajji might not even play which means half of these events can't happen. Bhajji is such an influencing obnoxious weed that we need him everywhere for the grand entertainment.
Secondly, Ricky has emphasized that he wants these series to be played in the 'right spirit of cricket'.

"You've got to expect that it's going to be a fierce contest because you've got two very good teams playing international sport. But both teams will understand that they can't overstep the line. There's enough negativity around the world at the moment about international cricket that we have to do the best we can in this series to ensure that people want to watch the game again. There's no doubt that things have been tarnished a bit the last few weeks."

So that's Ricky for you saying he will have nothing to do with any monkey business. Cricket's life is at stake here so understand how crucial everything is.

"What? Me sledging? I don't even spit in my hands anymore, I've got a contract with the Pope you know."

I wonder how the Indians are going to deal with this. They might be getting a ton of inspiration and ideas from the Chennai Super Kings who won two trophies in one year. Be ready to see replications like these:

Playing like total SUPER kings.

Butt is the solution of Pak cricket's problems: cartoon

Ijaz Butt is very concerned about the state of Pakistan cricket. So are we.

But the solution is really simple you know.



Bhajji getting vicious

The match-fixing thing has enraged more than many, but Bhajji is filled with much vehemence in particular for bookies. So much actually that he is now issuing statements that brim with anger and tells you how the miscreants should be treated.


“I will slap any bookie who will come near me, big time.”


Slapping, as you all know is a specialty for Bhajji. And the cunning nuisance himself knows it; don’t you see the grimace in that phrase? ‘Haha, that really hurt you poor little Sree, didn’t it? Of course it did, you ran sobbing to Miss Preety, you little whinger. And now the whole world is scared of my slapping abilities thanks to your tears.’


That Bhajji has savage feelings for the bookies doesn’t concern me much, but apparently he is as violent towards his critics. Even more probably:


“I will cut off those fingers.”


I should lock my doors. What if Bhajji sees any of my criticism and gets it in his head to sneak in my house and cut my fingers? Will I still be able to write then?


I’d better make sure Mumbai keeps him involved by having him play for them. And give him some counselling too because Bhajji is getting dangerous. So dangerous we might need to hang posters around like these to warn unsuspecting people:



WARNING: Bhajji becomes Bluebeard!

What everyone's thinking about the match-fixing

Stop being happy, I’m back already.
And sadly nothing of the match-fixing business has disappeared; I thought staying away from all of it for a few days might exterminate the whole thing. It didn’t help just like closing your eyes when a mad bison comes charging at you doesn’t.


You have to admire though how everyone wants to become popular through this spot-fixing issue. Everyone’s thinking and talking about it, like these blokes:


 Haroon Lorgat- “All those curmudgeons and dunderheads are saying the ICC is responsible for this controversy. Which I know it is, but bloody won’t owe up. I’d better ban those three rabble rousers for life to show how competent we the ICC are.”


Figjam- “The selectors are ***** for dropping me but I still rock because I made the headlines despite that ridiculous scandal going on. And now I’m going to get more followers on Twitter than Biff the muppet.”


Nathan Hauritz- “I’ll die if it comes out that those fifers I got were fake. Oh..boohoo...now Ricky might not let me play the Ashes and Sid might even stop loving me.”


Pss; trust me she won’t Nate. Here’s a hanky.


Mohammad Aamer- “This is so bad. I didn’t know it would become all so bad. I thought the man was trying to raise charity for the flood victims."

But I still feel bad for him.


Kaithapram Damodaran Namboodiri- “My movie plan is in ditches because there’s no Pakistani bowler left who I could use in my movie. Wait, how would Rana Naved ul Hasan do?”

                                  "Me for the hero, please please pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasee!!!"



Mohammad Asif- “Damn, I always get in trouble. First the drugs, now this crap, why don’t I just join the Sicilian Mafia or the Russian Brotherhood. I’ll get richer that way and it’s better than playing dirty cricket.”

Veena Malik- “See how those other actresses are burning with jealousy now that I got myself in the news. And now I also can get more publicity by bringing up the story of that cheat pinching my money again. Ha, who laughs last laughs best Asif.”


Shane Watson- “I’m so shocked at all what happened. Just imagine if I had got involved in this business-Oh, every miniscule feature of my body would have cringed with utter disgust and my heart would have stopped beating by the unspeakable shame of it. I feel like crying.”


Stuart Broad- “This is TOTALLYDAMNEDBULLSHIT which has besmirched my amazing century. I need my Daddy.RIGHT.NOW!!!!”


That was Broad exploding by the way.

Andrew Strauss- “This is too bad for our Ashes preparation, and the Ashes we just can’t lose. Maybe we should fix the games?”


News reporters- “We’re so glad we now have finally got an interesting news story which we can exaggerate a hundred times and show a hundred times to the viewers till it comes out of their ears.”


Sunny- “I bloody have got enough of it and feel like watching a game of cricket in Paradise without match fixing and lots of tea to drink.”

7 reasons why match fixing sucks

Here’s why match fixing or spot fixing or whatever fixing sucks more than Jacques Kallis would at ballet dancing:


1- Cricket becomes pointless, unrealistic and predetermined just like seeing how the good guy in a movie gets brazen by three bullets through the heart and continues to knock the villains around with kung fu moves. You think you’ve watched a bloody awesome cliffhanger of a match before someone tells you the bookies had it all arranged that way. I feel like vomiting the match.


2- It tarnishes the reputation of the game I love, you love and so many do. It gets folks away from cricket. How the hell am I to win in my campaign of getting cricket to become more popular than football then?


3- A whole cargo of new investigations arrives to get started and now the questions come pouring: What have they found so far? When will we get answers? Are they going to dig up Bob Woolmer’s case up again? Goodness, as if there’s not already enough to worry about in life.


4- Match/spot-fixing is cheating and cheating sucks whether you do at school when trying to copy from the study nerd besides you or on a cricket pitch.


5- Dirty money dealing is already taking over the world, and match fixing is part of it. It’s spitting in the face of honest breadwinners.


6- Dozens of other suspicious matches have to come under scrutiny and you wonder whether it hadn’t been better to have listened to your mom when she warned you not to sneak out of bed at night to watch a game, since all those matches might have been fixed.


7- The world economy is already in the doldrums and match fixing just worsens the food crisis as vegetables are used for player persecution. The animal industry also suffers as even donkeys are not spared.

Conclusion: the fixing business sucks. 'Nuff said.

                                                  Yeah, thumbs down for it.

To hell with the cheating

I didn’t know I would be greeted with so much wretched news from the Pakistan camp after waking up. So yeah, they’ve sadly managed to get themselves again in another big mess. And it seems to be a really disastrous mess this time around with bad consequences.


When this kind of crap happens, you’re always tempted to have a reaction of disbelief. Like wait no, see there isn’t evidence enough yet...let the whole investigation come to a conclusion first....it might be all faked. It’s what I’ve very often done. I haven’t always been right, but at least it was the kind of benign self-delusion rather than deliberate ignorance that got me through supporting this Pakistan team.


I’m afraid the trick isn’t going to last long anymore. To be candid, my favourite team they never have actually been, I’ve always kept them second. And even then it never exactly was the Pakistani cricket team I supported, it was Pakistan. You don’t support players that don’t give a shit for their country and it’s integrity. At least I hope I don’t.


Media stories I normally don’t swallow easily, because everything is so often blown out of proportion and combined with poppycock. Being gullible and taking all they give isn’t advisable, which is why NOTW’s reports haven’t convinced me yet entirely. But that something bad has happened, I won’t deny. Trying imagine the whole situation in the best possible way is all what I can do.


What wretches me most is that the Pakistani fans don’t deserve this. If there’s one thing in that troubled country which still keeps people happily engaging together, then that’s cricket. But when cricketers every time again say ‘Piss off losers, we’ve got our pockets to fill’ , then well, this entity won’t last long. Or at least not retain it’s value.


There are a million things left I could say, but words just don’t encompass feelings the right way now. I’m numbed and it’s still sinking in. How this everything has brought the game into disrepute and Amir’s fate is what concerns me most, but I can’t write about it now. It’s because I’m feeling like shit and know one of cricket’s most interesting though controversial teams might be ending in a way many wouldn’t have wanted. I’m still hopeful that the worst doesn’t happen, but you can’t feel the same way when you know you’ve been cheated.


And I bloody feel like being cheated.

Swanny the Cat Saver

People make crazy accidents when they neglect traffic rules.
People ignore red lights when they urgently need to go the lavatory.
People play ghost riders when they’re getting late and know they’ll get a spit-laden lecture from pumpkin faced bosses.
People overspeed when they’ve drunken booze and come to know their cat is whining under some floorboard. Only to get screwdrivers.

"You wanna fight? I'll do anything to save my cat."

I had my doubts about Graeme Swann’s eccentricity, but now those have been confirmed.
Swanny is scared from his neighbours and so never asks for their screwdrivers.
Swanny has magnificent fingers and uses them to fix an odd little job at home.
Swanny loves his cat.

I think the police should realise this is more than enough reason to lock him up and then hand over the keys to me.

Broad is unloved

There, I said it.
Now go Little Stuey, hide in a corner and weep until you drench in your own tears. You can also pull your blonde hairs out if you want. Just don’t put them on e-bay.

Most of us have had annoying pasty-faced buggers in our school of whom no one can even hurt a hair just because their dads run the biggest bubblegum factory in the country. It’s terrible, because they are usually the individuals which are the most coveted punchballs around. They can do all the naughty tricks they want because teachers will deliberately go to have a look out of the window when they do it. All punishment they ever get is some admonition like "Dear boy, don’t do that again. Now you want another sugar cookie?"

Such a lad is Stuey. No one likes to do anything against him because he’ll run off to tell his Daddy. He doesn’t need to do that actually because his Daddy will be there first. Now that his little brat has been fined 50 percent of his match fee, he can’t get over it.

Cricinfo has been very kind of putting a poll on its website and I’m loving what people have got to think. In response to the question whether the fine was sufficient as a punishment:

11% thought yes, it was blown out of proportion

80% said no, a ban was deserved to teach him a lesson (viva these guys)

9 % was not sure, thinking it wasn’t that bad, but he does attract trouble

Most people want him to be sent out of the classroom and I’m sure you are one of them. Go and without a second thought, vote for the second option and you’re a smart person.

He’s JesseR. And he’s a Bad Boy.

In the profile of New Zealand’s unruly baddie and sworn troublemaker for life, JesseR has wreaked havoc in a hotel again. With complete hyperbolic exaggeration we’re telling you he probably smashed ten windows, hung the hotel registrant at a door and clubbed down a few of the police officers after getting inebriated by finishing four crates of beer bottles.

This news isn’t the bad one though. The bad one is that he’s got enough of this behaviour.

Now for many of the Blackaps it’s been a bit of a tough job getting the same high profile image as those from India and Australia get. But not for JesseR. He was the Kiwi who trumpeted his entry from beyond the boundary, blaring "HEY THERE! IT‘S ME JESSE-R AND WILL I BE A GOOD LAD? NEVAAAA!!!"

That’s how you do it. That’s how you make yourself popular in a time frame less than one-tenth that of Vettori and putting in an effort less than one-tenth of Vettori. Go JesseR- he was the man who brought the art of popularity-in-9-months to cricket and tarnished New Zealand’s reputation of gentleness.

But now what he’s got to say is this:

"Now I know that I have to keep my head down, keep training hard and force my way back in the side. This is pretty much a wakeup call for me. I just have to stay home now and try and stay away from all the off-field distractions so I don’t get in trouble out in public. I’m pretty desperate to stay on the right track and be a Black Cap [New Zealand player]."

"Now they've hidden away all the booze. Criminals."

JesseR, don’t you realise we won’t like you as a meek giant teddybear? That we want you to be a rebellious monster of a grizzly? Don’t believe everything what New Zealand Cricket tells you. Play like a superstar for one season and break hell the next; they can’t drop you that way.

Way to go, JesseR.

Spit and Spat

The series between the Saffers and Windies gave the same doze as Hundred years of Solitude. It was one of the kind which would fade into match archives and statistics and in gratitude of it being over we all did good deeds today. However, neither Big Benn, nor Steyn, nor Roach wanted it to be devoured to oblivion, and so they protested.

Now we all know that Big Benn has got problems. He doesn’t understand why we have to listen to anyone. Neither does he understand how to stay good for a day. He doesn’t even fear Chris. But blame the commentator’s curse as well. Just when they were mumbling how Benny had turned into a good boy, Benny got a devilish streak in his head and decided to prove the ignorant numbskulls wrong. After all, he was the praying mantis waiting for a fly to buzz by.

It was a Phalaborwa fly who has wrestled with crocodiles in the past, and when Benn provoked him, he spit. It was a wrong thing to do even though he was the birthday boy, and now he’s sitting with a big man-of-the-series trophy on his lap and all his match fee gone. Not funny, Steyn.

The next day, Roach jumped on the stage, completely uninvited. He bowled a good bouncer to Jakes, and Jakes said "Good ball there". That made Roach fume. Didn’t the Jackass now it was not good but supa-friggin-awesome-ricocheting-good?
The next ball was equally good, and this time Jakes didn’t say anything, so Roach wanted him arrested, but no one would agree.

"Oh, so you don't know what supa-friggin-awesome-ricocheting-good means, eh?"

To be honest, Roach looked quite ridiculous. It was the behaviour of a silly pumped up teen who gets ready to break a nose when someone steps on his shoelace. He was trying to be a macho, but failed, in a way like showing off your arm muscles before they slump down like the wind going out of inflated balloons. Next time better luck, Roach.