Inciting revolution

All this semi-final excitement is very well.  The CWC now has the finalists that the extended structure seemed designed to deliver and Tendulkar's date with destiny is nigh.

But others are also approaching their date with destiny.  His Royal Highness Prince William and Her Unroyal Commonerness Kate Middleton have less than a month before they bring joy to the nation through the additional day off work that has been ordained. 
Long standing readers of these pages may also recall how the wedding announcement scuppered the tentative plans for HRH to turn out for Carlton in the coming season.  But while the disappointment may have been crushing to some of the club's more impressionable members, FB's further consideration of the issue leads him to conclude that it is a matter for some relief.  Skippering a royal might not be easy.  FB wonders how in the heat of the moment he could remember the proper form in which to administer to the heir to the heir to the throne a right royal bollocking for dropping a sitter off his bowling.  Or the care that would have to be taken in asking HRH to drop down the order, in making clear that he meant the batting order not the order of precedence.  Appeals would be a bit different - 'Howsat' would become 'Subject I command you to give that man out LBW' which rather changes the overall conception. 

There are greater risks.  FB vividly remembers long ago playing rugby for his school against Gordonstoun who fielded a foreign princeling on the wing.  While the princeling's team approached him with a studied deference - 'Permission to pass to you sir' - his own team of plebs was filled with anti-monarchist fervour.  They embraced with enthusiasm and more the opportunity to re-enact the French Revolution at every ruck.  Such revolutionary fervour could disturb the batsman's concentration unduly.

So all in all HRH's other priorities might be a bit of a relief. FB suspects that his risk of finishing the season in the Tower of London for treasonous bowling changes or some such affront would just have been too high.

While cricket seems to be free from the royal couple, another of FB's great loves is not. Cakes have succumbed and a royal wedding cup cake has been designed.  Now FB gives fair warning that if these turn up anywhere near him on any cricket tea table this season it will lead directly to the start of the revolution.

Incitement to revolution