One World

Fantasy Bob has to confess that he did not watch the 8 hours of the One World: Together at Home streaming last night.  The Metropolitan Opera's streaming of Madame Butterfly rather got in the way.

FB wholly approves of One World's objective and if the organisers had paid attention he might have been tempted to watch, even though the majority of the performers were wholly unknown to him.  Had there been a cricketer or two on the bill, he might have left Madame Butterfly to her own despair.  But the organisers were found sadly wanting and no cricketers had been invited to strut their stuff.   It is disappointing that they had not caught up with the rapid musical progress that Joe Root has made (see FB's post of 4 days ago).  Joe would surely have been a worthy addition to the line-up. 

As it is, the nearest the event came to a cricketer might have been Mick Jagger - or Sir Mick Jagger as his family like to call him.  Sir Mick is an acknowledged cricket fan and is often seen hob-nobbing at Lords.  But he blew the opportunity to bring a little cricket into the show - The Stones performed You Can't Always Get What You Want which isn't really a cricket song.  It was Elton John - Sir Elton to his family - who put some decent cricketing content out with a rendition from his garden of his tribute to Dickie Bird and Billy Bowden - I'm Still Standing.

Even without Joe Root, there are many cricketers who might have been able to parade their musical skills.  Here are 5 (click the name for a sample of their musical offering).

Curtly Ambrose, or Sir Curtly as he is known to his family - he is Knight Commander of the Order of the Nation in his home Antigua, may no longer terrify batsmen but he has for many years played bass in his band Spirited.

Brett Lee, by some oversight yet to be knighted, has played in a number of bands but during the Champions Trophy in 2006 also recorded a song with Bollywood star Asha Bhosle. 

Dwayne Bravo, also yet to be knighted, wrote and record Champion which almost became the anthem of the 2016 T20 World Cup.

AB de Villiers (ibid) released an album in 2010.

Mark Butcher (ibid) has pursued a recording career since leaving cricket.

Now none of these musical offerings is exactly to FB's taste, so they may not have tempted him from Madame Butterfly anyway.  Maybe the organisers knew what they were doing after all, but it would have been fun to have the choice.