Friday 10 June 2011

What's good enough for Surrey.....

Grid girls in their natural habitat
Fantasy Bob has noticed reports that the mighty Surrey CC, home to Jack Hobbs and Ken Barrington, KP and Ramps, will introduce walk-on girls at an imminent fixture.  Apparently this is a concept derived from F1 where grid girls and pit babes stand about the cars hoping not to get run over. Many of these girls may well have honed these skills to Olympic levels by trying to cross Edinburgh's Princes Street.  They are in some way essential to the endeavour of the particiapants.

As a new man FB deplores the genderism and sexism in such a concept.  In addition as far as FB is concerned anything with any association with the truly dreadful world of F1 is also to be deplored.  So what hope for this initiative?  Little you might think.  However, if Surrey think it will help KP get over his fear of slow lefties, he thinks a go-ahead club such as his own Carlton should be looking at the concept seriously.  He has therefore been moved to write to the supreme executive authorities of Carlton Cricket Club to propose that future 4th XI games should have similar walk-on girls on an experimental basis. 

He notes that the principal role of the girls in Surrey is to escort all batsmen to the wicket.  FB accepts that this would be of great assistance in FB's all star 4th XI where there is consistent evidence that some batsmen are uncertain where the wicket actually is (and even more uncertain what to do when they get there).  He suggests that this escort will speed up play considerably.  FB also offers himself for an additional range of services which might be explored a\s part of the experiment.  Thus he suggests that when he is bowling, the girls might appeal on his behalf so saving his vocal cords for shouting at the juniors; they might carry the ball back to his mark, shining it on their groin at their discretion.   They might hold his sweater during the over, relieving the umpire of a burden, and return it nicely folded and on occasion ironed at the end of the over.  When he is batting, they might use their stiletto heels to assist the process of taking guard; they might winningly ask the umpire from time to time how many balls are left and keep FB up to date with the latest position.  There is therefore any number of important duties that such girls could perform and it would be a mistake to think that they were merely decorative and that the whole concept is an insult both to cricket and to women.

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