A snub to cricket

Fantasy Bob had been well prepared.  He had opened his diary at the correct page and marked the date in red ink.  There must be no danger of there being a competing commitment.  Even Currie and Balerno CC might have to take second place to this.  The big one.  FB was beginning to think of his outfit.  Would anyone really notice the moth holes in his kilt that suddenly appeared last summer?  Perhaps a new extra large sporran would provide discrete cover.  That grey silk tie must be somewhere, or was it used to tie the lawn-mower handle together a couple of years ago?  It was all building up what about Mrs FB's hat?  Would the budget cope?


The royal cricket snubbers

But all that preparation and forward planning looks like it will come to naught.  Hours in the nets during the week followed by a golden duck on Saturday.  All that excitement deflated.  FB sits morose.  He cannot understand how it can have happened. He does not feature in the 1900 names on the guest list for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.  How have he and Mrs FB been overlooked in favour of such minor celebrities as David and Victoria Beckham and Elton John and David Furnish. 

FB is downcast and Mrs FB has a spare hat chasing an occasion.  But he realises he is not alone.  Last night the phone rang and FB spent a torrid 20 minutes trying to console Barack Obama who had just heard of his own omission.  'We'd all fixed up to go to Legoland at Windsor too.'  FB could only commiserate but as evidence of the special relationship has, as consolation invited the entire Barack family to view Carlton's fixture that weekend.

FB is disturbed to discover that the young couple have excluded the cricket world completely from the celebrations.  A disgraceful snub.  He had always presumed that if no other cricketer made it, Geoff Boycott was a member of the royal family and would have a formal part in the ceremony - advising the bride as she moves down the aisle or the corridor of uncertainty as he calls it.  But no.  FB now seriously wonders if the matching batting pads he generously sent as a wedding gift will be put to any use.

It's enough to make FB a republican.

It never came........................