The Idler, Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Is this

really

cricket?

WE PURISTS look down our noses at T-20 cricket. It lacks guile and class. They wear pyjamas. Batsmen play shots that at school would have had us caned. It's a bastardised version of baseball, played on plumb wickets with boundary fielders waiting for catches; no slipfielders, nobody close in. It ain't real cricket.

If Test cricket is the equivalent of chess and one-day cricket the equivalent of draughts, T-20 surely is pocket billiards.

I watched the closing overs of Sunday's T-20 against Pakistan at the Wanderers. Hey, tense stuff. Pakistan needing just over two runs a ball to win. Quite possible.

Then 9 runs to win off four balls. Still possible. Then a dot-ball. Then a wicket. It ended with 9 runs needed off one ball.

Theoretically possible with a lot of running between the wickets and a lot of overthrows. But unlikely – as it proved.

This was a great game of pocket billiards.

 

 

A TRUE fisherman's story comes this way, told in the first person from America's Deep South.

Ah went fishin' this mornin' but after a short time Ah ran outa worms.

Then Ah see'd a cottonmouth with a frog in its mouth. Frogs are good bass bait.

Knowin' thuh snake couldn't bite me with thuh frog in its mouth, Ah grabbed it right behind the head, took thuh frog an' put it in mah bait bucket.

But how to get rid of thuh snake without gettin' bit? I grabbed mah bottle of Jack Daniels an' poured a little whiskey in its mouth. Its eyes rolled back an' it went limp.

Ah put thuh snake back in thuh lake an' went on fishin', usin' thuh frog.

Next I feels somethin' nudgin' mah foot. It's that damn snake again … carryin' two mo' frogs.

 

A SWARM of bats interrupted a basketball match in San Antonio, Texas, the other night, giving a scare to players and spectators alike and depositing significant quantities of guano on the court.

The match was between the San Antonio Spurs and the Brooklyn Nets.

A broadcaster exclaimed in astonishment: "There's guano on the court!" His listeners must have been equally astonished.

Bat-catchers were summoned, according to Huffington Post. These were security guards with nets. They're accustomed to bat invasions in San Antonio. They know how to handle them and had them netted in a few minutes.

But the guards have to avoid physical contact with the bats. One of them swatted a bat with his hand on a previous invasion and ended up getting 16 rounds of rabies shots.

Here's more ammo for Donald Trump. "Swarms of rabid bats flying in from Mexico to disturb our basketball matches and bite and infect our players and officials.

"Build that wall! Higher than ever! This is an emergency! No bat must pass! We'll close down government to keep out the rabid bats! America first!"

 

Tailpiece

FIVE blokes are touring Europe in an Audi Quatro. They come to the Spanish border.

"Passports please." They hand them over. Then the border guard says: "Five of you in four-seater. You breaka da law."

"That's ridiculous. It's a five-seater. The manual says so."

"Who this Manuel? 'Quatro' meaning 'Four'."

"Don't be absurd! I want to speak to your superior."

"That him over there. Collecting fines from two hombres in Fiat Uno."

Last word

It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.

W Somerset Maugham