WITTERINGS

Indoor nets

2012-02-26T08:00:00.000Z

Torture chamber

Friends and relations - not that he has many of the former and most of the latter have disowned him - have been a bit worried about Fantasy Bob in recent weeks. His shuffling gait is even more shuffling. His haunted look even more haunted. His exhausted sigh wholly and totally exhausted. Oh that this too too solid flesh would..........whatever, it's just too too solid.

To the medically and psychiatrically qualified, these symptoms can only mean one thing. FB has been attending indoor nets. They offer a cruel reminder of the passing of time. The lights that seemed so bright just last year seem that bit dimmer - surely the staff can clean the shades at least once a year. That bouncing run up of old barely bouncing and to describe it as a run is probably contrary to the Trades Description legislation. Fielding practice seems guaranteed to produce only a couple of broken fingers rather than hone those keenly honed reflexes and panther like silken movements in the covers. It is all hugely enjoyable. Thank the Lord for Radox.

FB has been road testing his new bat for the last couple of weeks. An imposition on his precarious finances made necessary by the wanton destruction of his previous timber by a youthful bowler at the end of last season. The new blade, a replacement long handle Gray Nicoll Nitro, arrived at Christmas time and has been subject to several extended innings in front of the wardrobe mirror prior to its formal inauguration. Everything looked good.

However FB is sad to report that he has been sent what is obviously a defective instrument. For his 2 sessions at the nets have produced a range of red marks down the inside edge but none anywhere near the middle of the blade. He will therefore have to consider parcelling this bat up and sending it back to the makers with a request that they replace it with a bat that works.

The Velodrome

2012-02-25T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob is pleased to read that Britain’s cyclists have pronounced themselves happy with their new Velodrome, specially constructed for the coming London Olympics at outrageous expense. They are expecting it to deliver record breaking performances.

Apparently one characteristic of the track is that the finish line is further down the home straight than other tracks – FB knows nothing about cycling but he might have thought records would be more likely to broken if the finish line was brought nearer the start line.

FB is endlessly confused by the myriad of strange events that form the cycling competition. It wasn’t like that when he got his Cycling Proficiency Certificate. Even so, FB understands that the Olympic committee is giving consideration to additional events based on simulating real cycling experiences, most particularly an event which has cyclists speeding down pavements knocking over pedestrians here and there. Mrs FB attests that the practice track for this event has been situated on her walking route between home and office – as a result of which she is a medal prospect for the complimentary event of dodging cyclists. Her vigorously brandished umbrella and suggestions where the cyclists can put their 24 gear shifts would also gain her additional style points.

However Edinburgh Council’s imaginative plans for a pothole dodging race have been abandoned when it was found that there is not enough track between the potholes to make a viable track.

But FB has also noted how science is coming to the aid of the cyclists, as nothing is left to chance in the pursuit of completely useless medals. A significant factor is the weather – notwithstanding the fact that the events are all indoors. The arena is apparently kept at a constant temperature of 28 degrees – that is quite a bit cooler than the conditions found throughout the cricket season at Carlton’s Grange Loan HQ. But other factors are important too – humidity and air pressure. Together they affect the density of the air as the boffin investigating all this says ‘The higher the air density, the harder it is to push through the air.’ Doh - isn't science wonderful? This means that low pressure is what these lycra-wrapped peddlers are hoping for during the summer. Summer low pressure is associated with rain and squalls. So if the cycling records tumble, it’ll be another bad summer for cricketers.

In the spirit of scientific enquiry, under the supervision of go-ahead club Carlton's top sports scientists Fantasy Bob took part in some of the highly secret tests to determine the implications for cricketers. He and Sir Chris Hoy were tested under a range of conditions. While it was a strain to be assessed against Edinburgh’s finest elite competitor, Hoy came through pretty well.

FB recently gained exclusive access to the report and shares them here with his worldwide readership.

Weather Factor	Sir Chris Hoy	Fantasy Bob
High temperature	Super fast – expect records to tumble	Knackered
Low temperature	Not so fast but gold medals assured	Knackered
Low Pressure	Low air density – whoosh!	Knackered
High Pressure	Not so fast but still a winner	Knackered
Low Humidity	Greased lightning	Knackered
High Humidity	Fast but a bit more sweaty	Knackered

Fat

2012-02-24T08:00:00.000Z

Once cricketers have exhausted the nostalgic recollection of batsmen or bowlers long gone and matches well and truly over; once their wistful reminiscences have dwelt on items of equipment and clothing and generalised to what was fashionable when they were young and eager; once they have relived their dancing days in reviving the dance-hall, or disco, or club hits of their day, there is only one true subject for nostalgia - food. For food brings memories of home and origin and the route to a man's nostalgia lies through his stomach.

Bread and Mucky Fat - 35p

Fantasy Bob is stimulated to these philosophical posturings by a recent piece in the Guardian's food blog about the mucky fat butty. Apparently this splendidly named item was a delicacy of the English north-west and is occasionally seen still in the area. While the author of this piece rather delicately reported that this delicacy is basically bread spread with lard, but rather than sound off in a Guardian-type way about the perils of eating such food, she then reviewed some other very local food products of days gone by.

But FB sticks on the mucky fat butty - the mucky fat in question would not be the highly processed lard which is still available as a cooking medium but dripping with bits of whatever meat it came from in it (hence mucky). Nowadays cricketers have long eschewed dripping, lard and fat for healthier alternatives including olive oil, virgin, first pressing, extra virgin, blah blah, grapeseed oil, walnut oil - in fact any oil full of noncholesterolunsaturatedomega3 and all that stuff. But for the nostalgia hound, fat is the boys. When FB was growing up he had a balanced diet - fruit and vegetables were always part of any meal. But the fat content of his diet was exponential compared to today. Lard and cooking fat were used as a cooking medium and in home-baking. Butter was that bit too expensive for the thrifty Scot - who felt that butter based baking was a bit too rich in any case.

Here are the 5 top fat products that children of his generation in Aberdeen will find loom large in their nostalgia fantasies:

Mealie puddings - (known elsewhere as white puddings) - oatmeal, onion and suet/lard packed in a sausage skin. Often served as a main course with Chips - home made and cooked in dripping/lard

Fried Bread - a slice of white pan loaf soaked in hot dripping

Herrings - tossed in oatmeal and fried in dripping - much of the greasiness was actually hugely healthy fish oil so FB is cheating putting that in but it is a very nostalgic item given the disappearance of

Potted Heid (or Hough) - low quality meat, lard based gravy pressed into small tubs - used as a sandwich spread

Rowies - don't be fooled these can kill

Rowies - now this is the daddy of them all. Otherwise known as a buttery, or an Aberdeen Roll (or Croissant ha, ha) - this is a roll made with such a high proportion of lard that it slides around the plate. It was said to be invented for the trawlerman to take on his voyages as a source of energy and sustenance. It is highly salted and so could keep for days. Don't be fooled by the Marks and Spencers alternative which is made with vegetable oil and is very tame. A traditional rowie has 300 calories and 30g of saturated fat. It's for grown ups.

All these would slow any team down if they were to be found on the cricket tea table.

Too much for FB

But fat in the diet has vanished in other areas as well as sunny Aberdeen.

FB's late father in law who was born in Poland used to attack with relish on a daily basis a delicacy called griebenschmaltz liberally spread on a slice of bread. Greibenschmaltz is German for mucky fat (just about) - the version that FB's father in law extolled was in fact rendered goose fat, but there are duck and pork based versions too.

Now FB would just about take on a mealie pudding or a rowie, but he never quite met his father in law's griebenschmaltz challenge. He was a continual source of disappointment as a son-in-law.

The Carlton Affair

2012-02-23T08:00:00.001Z

Strauss-Kahn
leaves after delivering his letter

Senior figures at Edinburgh's go-ahead cricket club Carlton have released the text of a letter they received this week.

It is understood to have been sent via his lawyer by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has been helping police with their enquiries over allegations of sex rings in France.

Dear Go-ahead Carlton Cricket Club,

I am tres tres sorry that this messy petite business in France has been dubbed the Carlton affair and may have inadvertantly caused the great name of your go-ahead club to be questioned by unscrupulous media hacks. It is, how you say, a cock-up - an unfortunate phrase in the circumstances. Some hotel here named itself in honour of your club hoping to emulate your go-aheadness (epic fail IMHO).

I acknowledge that I have had no association with your go-ahead club and have never played for you - not even for Fantasy Bob's All Star 4th XI which surely needs a little vroom-vroom such as I could give it. Nor have I been to any orgies in your well appointed Grange Loan ground, although if you are planning to organise any in future I would be happy to offer advice as to how to ensure they go with a swing.

I also would like to make clear that when I said a person would find it difficult to tell the difference between a naked cricketer and any other naked person, I had never seen Fantasy Bob emerging from the shower after a long afternoon bowling up the hill against the wind.

With best wishes for the coming season

Dominique

PS please send autographed photo of your ever popular skipper Fraggle Watts, the girls here keep asking after him.

On hearing of the letter, Carlton's Doughty (but nameless) Groundsman expressed his disappointment that Mr Strauss-Kahn had been overlooked for the position of social convenor at the club.

Ash

2012-02-22T08:00:00.000Z

Aberdeen -
typical street scene

Fantasy Bob doesn't know his ash from his elbow.

FB hesitates to make further reference to his growing up in that sub-tropical paradise in the North East of Scotland known more widely as Aberdeen. But he must. While he was well and thoroughly schooled in the ways of the Church of Scotland, he cannot remember too much fuss being made of Lent and Ash Wednesday. Pancakes were always welcome on Pancake Day but that was that.

Maybe it was because in that sub-tropical paradise there was already enough privation so the thought of giving anything up for 40 days was a bit too much to ask. After all, it was not as if Aberdonians had samba'd their way up to Mardi Gras in scanty spangled bikinis to give themselves something to recover from. And giving up something might have targetted biscuits, from which no Aberdonian can be parted. The population was sufficiently devout without additional devotion.

Yggdrasil

So ash has other significances in FB's tiny mind. Most particularly is the fact that cricket stumps are typically made from the wood. The reference books suggest that ash is used because it is has excellent properties of resilience and flexibility.

But this is very prosaic - too prosaic for FB. FB thinks is it more likely that
ash was selected for stumps for a far deeper reason - one in which the symbolic position of the batsman is to the fore. Regrettably with modern education being what it is, the true lore has been lost. In Norse mythology it wasYggdrasil, the world ash tree, which held up the entire world and nurtured it and the first man, Ask, was formed from an ash tree. The ash exudes a sugary substance 2 which, by traditional accounts, was fermented to create the Norse Mead of Inspiration.

What could be more symbolic of the batsman's lonely vigil than to be guarding the tree of creation? Regrettably even on the rare occasions that FB has successfully defended the World Ash Tree he has found precious little by way of Mead of Inspiration at the crease.

Pieces of the World Ash Tree

More fitting to FB's case is that the reference books say that ash wood makes excellent firewood. And that is what the stumps behind him, carefully honed from Yggdrasil as they are, frequently become as he misses another straight one. Firewood.

FB doesn't know his ash from his elbow. Perhaps FB should have done more to seek forgiveness during all those many Lents so long ago............................

Reach for the Sky

2012-02-21T08:00:00.000Z

When Fantasy Bob was growing up - a phrase which implies that he may now have grown up, which is open to doubt. But certainly when FB was younger than he is now, the BBC seemed to have a library totalling 3 films which is used to show with commendable regularity on high days and holidays. One of those was Reach for the Sky, which starred Kenneth More and told the tale of air ace Sir Douglas Bader CBE, DSO & Bar,DFC & Bar, FRAeS, DL and his determined response to losing his legs in a flying accident before the 2nd World War. The film showed how he mastered walking with artificial legs to the extent that he returned to active and heroic service in 1939.

The BBC's film library was all like that - full of stuff showing typical British pluck, indomitable spirit and stiff upper lipness and a distinct absence of bad language even under the most adverse of situation.
FB mentions this because 21 February is the birthday of Douglas Bader, who was born in 1910 and died in 1982. Reach for the Sky may be accurate in many ways, it may be fictional in others (in particular the amiable and polite Kenneth More was nothing like the headstrong Bader in real life who used bad language with the enthusiasm of a contemporary comedian). What the film does not show is Bader's cricket career.

As a schoolboy and young officer, Bader was an outstanding sportsman. Although his preference seems to have been rugby, and he may well have been capped had his accident not ensued, he was a talented cricketer. He played for the RAF in their match against the Army at the Oval in 1931, which had first class status, and so makes it to Wisden. He scored 65 and 1.

Bader also played cricket in a German prisoner of war camp - despite his disability. He had been shot down over France in 1941. It is not known whether such close up experience of cricket had a significant impact on German morale. FB would like to think cricket's contribution to the defeat of Nazism was important. Bader certainly would have supported this - as a prisoner he was determined to make life difficult for his captors and was a serial escapee to the extent that the camp officers threatened to take his legs away. Instead he was confined to the escape-proof Colditz - where there was no cricket pitch. No wonder he wanted to escape.

Movie News

2012-02-20T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob brings you news of a new cinematic release that will interest all cricketers.

Akmal is convinced that his father has left a final catch behind for him hidden somewhere. He begins searching - he stands up - every ball could have that secret - the snick that fits his mysterious idea of a lbw. His journey annoys the hell out of every batsman but takes him to a greater understanding of the observable world around him through endless DRS replays.

Akmal is appealing at a cinema near you now.....................extremely loud and incredibly close.

TOWIE

2012-02-19T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob has obtained the following spoiler for the new series of the ever popular dramality show......................coming to your screen soon.

When hunk Merv Eastfield comes to town he has only one burning ambition and nothing can stop him.

He has had it with line and length, he wants to set up the glitziest nail bar in all of Essex. He knows what he wants and he wants it now.

But Easty lacks one thing. Moolah. Readies. Dosh. (In fact, he lacks 2 things, moolah and brains, but that it another issue.)

So he is easy meat - and there is a lot of meat about, mostly in short skirts and high heels. When local bad boy Swedish Keenaria swings by he seems to have the answer to Easty's prayers. And bottle blondes come Easty's way offering themselves for manicures - all he has to do is slip a few fake suntans their way. He just drops it short. Puts it a bit wide. No one gets hurt.

Easty's mates think it's just banter, but when they see that plastic bag full of bling on the bed they 'fink summink must be well dodgy'. Before Easty and Swedish can react the Old Bill arrive.

Is there a culture of denial in Essex? Everyone denies it.

This series will run for four months.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Essex - the First XI

Schadenfreude

2012-02-18T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob would like to apologise for any impression that he may give that he feels any emotion that could be described as schadenfreude at the troubles faced by Rangers FC. He recognises that many cricketers in many different walks of life, and for different reasons, will have that smug feeling of warmness at these events.

Schadenfreude is an emotion unworthy of FB (although he quite enjoys it now and then). No person from Aberdeen, FB's home town, would feel anything remotely near schadenfreude at the possibility that Rangers might be wiped off the map.

FB has noted the news about the £24m that Rangers' administrators cannot trace and confirms that he does not have it - but then nor do Rangers. He has noted the suggestions that other clubs cannot do without Rangers - but he is confident that go-ahead Edinburgh club Carlton will do perfectly well. He has noted that Mr Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, visited Scotland yesterday presumably to retrieve the UK stockpile of Union Jacks which is held at Ibrox........

Instead FB will confine his emotional outburst to sincere congratulations to Scotland batsmen Richie Berrington on his maiden first Class century and Simon Smith's maiden half century in the match against UAE.

See that Freude - it's much better without the Schaden.

PS - Fantasy Bob would like to apologise for any impression that he may give that he does not feel any emotion that could be described as schadenfreude at the reported demise of the Sun newspaper.

Cricket on Ice

2012-02-17T08:00:00.000Z

Cricket on ice may well sound like what is to be expected during early season games in Scotland – and indeed mid and late season games in a number of exposed Scottish grounds that Fantasy Bob remembers with a fond shiver.

But Fantasy Bob is confident that his world wide readership, effortlessly familiar as they are with up-market destinations around the world, will associate cricket on ice with the annual cricket festival that has taken place at this time of year in St Moritz in Switzerland since 1988. FB guesses that on this account St Moritz is also the home of cricket on ice, although an event describing itself as The Ice Cricket World Championship has been held annually in the Estonian city of Tallinn since 2004.

In St Moritz yesterday, today and tomorrow a mat is laid along the ice on the frozen lake and stumps set to allow teams to compete over 20 or 25 overs per side in a round robin format. Just like the real thing - except that there are no grass stains on players’ trousers.

St Moritz is among the most expensive ski resorts in the world and arguably can be regarded as the home of the Alpine tourist industry. In 1864 a confident St Moritz hotelier made a wager with British summer guests: that they should return in winter and if it was not to their liking, he would pay for the cost of their journey from London and back. If they found St Moritz attractive in winter, he would invite them to stay as his guests for as long as they wished. They are still there………… The first tourist office in Switzerland was established that year in the town and St. Moritz developed rapidly in the late nineteenth century. St Moritz’s Kulm Hotel installed the first electric light in Switzerland in 1878. The first European Ice-Skating Championships were held at St. Moritz in 1882 and first golf tournament in the Alps held in 1889. And so on and so forth..........

St Moritz enjoys over 300 days sun per year – which is about 299 more days than the West of Scotland get on a good year. It therefore lays on lots of distractions to amuse its well-heeled clientele who seem to tire of endless trips round exclusive boutiques. Besides cricket, St Moritz also has horse racing on ice (the white turf) and a polo competition on ice. It is also the home of the Cresta Run the oldest and last remaining natural bob sleigh run. The 1722 meter long structure opened in 1904 and is regarded as the world biggest ice sculpture - for it is built every winter from ground up with only snow and water.

Regrettably, with the price of a beer in St Moritz approximately equivalent to the cost of a new Gray Nicolls Scoop, and significant uncertainty as to the availability of empire biscuits in St Moritz, it is unlikely that FB will have the chance to show his skills to the crowds who flock to watch cricket on the ice. They don’t know what they’re missing…or maybe they are all too well aware.

Meigle Knights

2012-02-16T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob is sure that the hearts and minds of his world wide readership are with Scotland's cricketers as they meet the challenge of the UAE in their ICC Championship match that gets underway in Sharjah today.

Sir Drummo

Scotland have played 2 matches in the round-robin tournament. While they are unbeaten, they have had 2 draws which puts them a bit behind table toppers Ireland who scraped a second win last week against Kenya after being bowled out for 75 in the first innings. So come on Scotland.

Travelling from the dead of Scotland's winter to the Middle East for a global cricket tournament seems to FB a trek of the sort that once was enshrined in the legends of Arthur - although there is no evidence that the Knights of the Round Table were all that keen on cricket, preferring jousting and similar activities. However Scottish skipper Gordon Drummond may well have a connection with Arthurian lore and be a worthy successor to the Gawains and Lancelots. He could be Sir Drummo.................

Campbell-Bannerman

Drummo was born and bred in the Perthshire town of Meigle. But there are other reasons to celebrate Meigle. For one thing, it contains the home and the burial place of long past British Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Campbell-Bannerman was the first holder of the office to be called Prime Minister (previously known as the First Lord of the Treasury) and he led a liberal administration which introduced, among other things, free school meals and pensions for the over 70s. While Bannerman had no reported interest in cricket, he had to resign through ill health before he could consider legislation for free cricket coaching for all children. But FB digresses - he was building up Drummo as an Arthurian hero...................

Meigle 2

And here is the point, Meigle is also celebrated for its fine collection of Pictish carved stones. Perhaps the finest of these is known, with scant regard for poetry, as Meigle 2. It is 2.5m high and probably once stood beside the entrance to the churchyard. The stone features a wheel-headed cross with raised bosses, resembling the rivet heads of metalwork, and interlaced images of beasts on the shaft. On the reverse is a hunting scene and what appears to be beasts tearing at a figure.

There is a local tradition that Meigle 2 marked the grave of Vanora - and there is a mound in the churchyard that bears that name to this day. Vanora will be better known to FB's readers as Queen Guinevere, wife of King Arthur, who, according to one set of stories about her, was abducted by King Mordred and held captive on Berry Hill, near Meigle. When she returned to her husband, he sentenced her to death by being torn apart by wild beasts. The scene on the stone is believed to depict this tragic event. Carving the scene on a stone was the best they could do in those days, there being no phone cameras available at the time to capture the image and post it on Facebook.

So, come on goodly knight Sir Drummo. Excalibur to the fore. Come on Scotland.

Meigle Churchyard - Vanora's Mound

Adele

2012-02-15T08:00:00.000Z

Would she recognise Fantasy Bob?

It looks like it's Adele's year.

Fantasy Bob has little idea who Adele is, or what club she plays for. He is unsure as to her bowling action. If she came and sat down beside him on the bus, there is as much chance of her recognising FB as of FB recognising her. More, probably.

But FB does not wish to demean her achievements. He understands that Adele has dominated this year's Grammy and Brit awards, sweeping up armfuls of trophies just like FB at the end of the season. Good for her.

It looks like it is Adele's year alright, for FB can share with his worldwide readership his exclusive access to the winners of the forthcoming prestigious ICC awards:

Cricketer of the Year: Adele
Test player of the year: Adele
ODI player of the year: Adele
ICC Emerging player of the year: Adele
Best T20 performance of the year: Adele
Spirit of Cricket award: Adele
ICC Associate player of the year: Adele
Umpire of the year: Adele
Women's Cricketer of the Year: Stuart Broad

St Valentine

2012-02-14T08:00:00.000Z

Cricketers this morning will rise expectantly and wait for the post to be delivered with keener than usual anticipation. On other days the pile of junk mail is leavened only by credit card statements and council tax demands. Not the kind of material to excite the cricketer. Once again that kit that was ordered many months ago has failed to be delivered despite several increasingly acrimonious communications with the dispatch company which appears to be located on another planet.

But on 14 February the cricketer is expectant - there will be anonymous tributes from secret admirers that will quicken the pulse and give them a warm feeling in the googlies. There may even be some heart shaped chocolates and other tokens, although Fantasy Bob laments that the heart shaped empire biscuit remains a business opportunity for some enterprising baker to grasp. And the thing about those anonymous messages is that it is clear exactly who they are from.

No goat's blood please

There is a suggestion that all this St Valentine stuff was thought up by the early Christians to replace the pagan fertility festival of Lupercalia which really got the Ancient Romans going at this time of the year. Its rituals included the sacrificing of a goat. The priests would then strip the goat's hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. This was meant to assist fertility.

FB tried this one year with Mrs FB. It has to be said that she did not take kindly to the gentle slap of blood-soaked goat's hide as she came down for breakfast, failing to interpret it as a gesture of his undying love. Additional jewellery had to be purchased to compensate and FB has not ventured outwith the conventional territory of heart and rose decorated cards and champagne ever since.

Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the first in literature to make formal reference to Valentine tributes passing between admirers. Cricketers will also know Chaucer for the Canterbury Tales contains one of the first uses of the word cricke - meaning a stick - the word from which cricket is thought by some to derive. Having made that bright start however the rest of the Canterbury Tales is pretty light on cricketing interest and occasionally lapses into 15th Century bawdiness of a sort that is inappropriate to share with the younger members of FB's All Star Fourth XI.

Chaucer
on his way to crease

But what got Chaucer going on the Valentine thing? Who was this Saint Valentine? Your guess is as good as anyones. Soaked with goat's blood as they were, the Romans evidently had a thing about the name Valentine for they martyred 14 of them. So there are alternative candidates for whose day it is that inspires all this anonymous card sending.

Fourteen Valentines - that's enough martyrs for a full cricket team, 12th man scorer and umpire. Readers may think it unlikely that a same named team could be possible, but there is a documented instance of 2 teams turning out to play each other in Bradford in which all 22 players were named Patel. FB has been unable to establish whether they got 22 Valentine cards, or just one.

That scorecard - next fixture v Valentines XI

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on

2012-02-13T08:00:00.000Z

The non-handshake that shook the world

Fantasy Bob woke up yesterday to discover that World War 3 has broken out over a handshake that wasn't. The circumstances are all too tedious for Fantasy Bob to relate, and involve that rare circumstance of footballers behaving badly. But it did get him thinking about handshakes.

The world record for the longest handshake is held jointly by Alastair Galpin and Don Purdon from New Zealand and Nepalese brothers Rohit and Santosh Timilsina and stands at 33 hours and 3 minutes. And in 1977 Joseph Lazarow Mayor of New Jersey shook more than 11,000 hands in a day to set a world record. Either of these records is considerably more shaking than was achieved by Luis Suarez on Saturday.

Suarez's badge - lost in the post

But Suarez is not the only one who appears to have reservations about the handshake - Donald Trump, that ever popular and ego-driven despoiler of Scotland's national beauty, has said 'I think the handshake is barbaric... Shaking hands, you catch the flu, you catch this, you catch all sorts of things.' He joins a long list of celebrity germophobes no elongated by Luis Suarez.

There is also a movement - in the USA, where else - seeking to outlaw handshakes and a nifty badge is available to warn people that you are not a shaker. Perhaps Luis Suarez had joined this movement on Suaturday morning and was waiting for his membership badge to come through.

But cricketers could not join this movement for cricketers are compulsive handshakers. Any quiet moment in a match can be filled by a handshake. In his role as skipper of the All Star Carlton 4th XI each match day sees FB get pretty close ot Mayor Lazaroz's record. He has to shake hands with the opposition skipper before the toss during the toss and after the toss. Achievements on the field are met with celebratory handshakes and the touching of gloves by batting partners that now seems to be part of the rules is now recognised as a form of handshake - apparently named the dap. It is also a matter of regret that the handshake is being replaced at some points by high fives or even high tens - FB has written to the ICC inviting them to review this development with the suggestion that they put a stop to it.

Cricketers in Scotland
handshaking as nature intended

And then there is the all round handshaking at the end of the match. No wonder FB feels tired at the end of a match. Luis Suarez is not the kind of person to inspire sympathy, but perhaps as well as being concerned over germs he was concerned about his fitness and didn't want to tire himself out by too much shaking.

FB thinks he does a pretty good handshake - it may well be the best part of his game. But he is concerned about how he measures up to the formula prescribed by the handshake expert. In this he may not be alone for research suggests that as many as two in three people (70 per cent) have a crisis of confidence when it comes to performing the act of a human handshake. So Professor Geoffrey Beattie, head of psychological sciences at University of Manchester, has devised an equation taking into account 12 key measures to define a positive handshake:

PH = √ (e2 + ve2)(d2) + (cg + dr)2 + π{(42)(42)}2 + (vi + t + te)2 + {(42 )(42)}2

Some handshakes
are more historic even than Suarez
Chairman Mao and President Nixon
1972

To be honest, this is what FB has always thought. So FB is working hard to develop his hand-shake on the lines of this formula and he recommends that Luis Suarez does the same.

In the meantime - here is a version of the Jerry Lee Lewis Classic Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On recorded in 1973 by Vinegar Joe which rejoices in having Elkie Brooks as vocalist. Come on over baby....................

Pollock

2012-02-12T08:00:00.000Z

The air-waves have been ablaze these past few weeks with news of the bi-centenary of Charles Dickens. So much so that the centenary of the celebrated American painter Jackson Pollock, who was born in January 2012, has gone without much notice.

'Why oh why', readers are thinking, 'is Fantasy Bob tormenting us? Surely FB means Shaun Pollock - but he's never a hundred years old...............We're confused.'

FB has to come clean. There is no relation between the 2 Pollocks. While Wisden doesn't reveal much about Jackson Pollock's bowling action, they do confirm that at the height of his career he was considered to be the most significant American painter of his time. Perhaps Pollock's significance may have waned in the years since his death in 1956 but in the years up to then he was a pioneer of what became known as action painting, where the physical activity of getting paint on to the surface was important to the work. In his case his most important works were accomplished by dripping paint onto the canvas which lay flat on the floor. Highly intricate patterns would be formed through the overlapping drip patterns of a variety of outswingers and inswingers, although critics are still divided as to whether he deployed the doosra at all.

Action painting

Action bowling

It is hard to believe that Jackson Pollock was not a savant about how cricket would develop. This can be clearly seen in looking at these 2 great works which show how he drew inspiration from yet to be developed cricket technology - and his yet to be born namesake.

Jackson Pollock

Shaun Pollock

D&L 2

2012-02-11T08:00:00.000Z

KP celebrating
the new statistical method

The Duckworth Lewis method of calculating target scores in weather interrupted matches is firmly established at all levels of cricket and highly popular with statisticians and anorak wearers the world over. Even Fantasy Bob has celebrated its virtues and its little known origins in popular entertainment. However yesterday saw the unveiling in the UAE of a new addition to the statistical armoury - the Duckscored and Useless method.

Under this method a team batting first who is hopeless, abject, pathetic, or has other important things to do rather than scratch around at the crease all afternoon, can nominate a score which they think would be a worthy reflection of their innate talents as the target for the team batting second. This is known as the Lions' total.

FB is confident that the launch of this new approach will be deemed a triumphant success and the executive authorities of the East of Scotland Cricket Association and lesser authorities will be scrutinising the method closely to establish whether it is appropriate for their own use. FB recommends that the following considerations be taken into account in devising the rules for application of the new method in Scottish leagues:

A team deciding not to bat at all shall forfeit 50 runs from what would otherwise be considered to be the Lions' total. Where watching football is suspected by the umpires as part or all of the reason that forfeit shall be doubled.
Any team containing FB which is required to set a Lions' total shall be credited 50 runs above what would otherwise be the Lion's total - not because FB is a bit of a ringer with the bat (which he is) but to compensate them for his advancing ineptitude in the field and the ease batters now find in smacking his pies to the boundary.
A team which is deemed to provide an unsatisfactory tea shall forfeit 25 runs from what would otherwise be considered to be the Lion's total. The rules shall clearly provide that FB will be the sole arbiter of the adequacy of the tea provided. A team not providing empire biscuits shall forfeit an additional 10 runs for every empire biscuit that FB thinks he might have fancied that afternoon, subject to a maximum of 12.
Any disagreement as to the Lion's total may be settled by reference to the Court of Session. Legal aid may be available.

Redknapp

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

Bent arm suspicion

Fearing further uncontrollable hysteria in the English press, the ICC have been quick to issue a statement clearing the bowling action of Saeed Redknapp.

They have said that a court case earlier this week had established that Saeed's action is well within the ICC range of tolerance. The case followed allegations that Saeed had sought to hide 189,000 deliveries from the umpiring authorities during the recent Test series.

The ICC have stated that while Saeed does bowl with a bend in his arm, it does not straighten at the point of delivery more than about eight degrees on average. There is no relation between this action and the presence of bank accounts in Monaco. There had been confusion when Saeed referred to a 23.5 degree angle in an interview this week but this is now thought to refer either to the average angle of his wallet as it leaves his pocket - or the temperature in Abu Dhabi.

The ICC's statement leaves Redknapp free to prepare for the forthcoming ODI series with England. Meanwhile Harry Ajmal has emerged as a favourite for the suddenly vacant England football manager's post. In a radical innovation he will be selected for the post through acclamation on Twitter.

The Artist

2012-02-09T08:00:00.000Z

It sounds like it should be something that Dr Samuel Johnston might have said to Boswell while he looked up from his dictionary-making, 'Sir, I do believe that there is no misery known to man that could not be made passably better by a spot of tap-dancing.'

Fantasy Bob is pretty sure that Johnson did not make such an utterance, if only because he would not have known what tap-dancing was. He could have looked for enlightenment in the dictionary he was compiling but he would do so without success. 'Sir, I cannot find this word tap-dancing - what incompetent wrote this wretched tome?' Thus frustrated he would throw the volume to the floor. Boswell knew better than to point out that the author of the dictionary was the man himself.

Johnson was fully aware of cricket which did feature in his dictionary. He reports to Boswell that it was played when he was at Oxford in 1728 - and he may well have played it himself. But Johnson was frustrated in his search for an understanding of tap-dancing because in the 18th Century it did not exist, certainly not at Oxford. It probably began in the mid 1800s when minstrel shows gained popularity in America, from where it made its way to vaudeville, Broadway and Hollywood.

Beaten 3-0?
The triumph of hope over experience -

But Fantasy Bob was put in mind of the non-existent quote by Johnson upon a recent, and these days all too rare, visit to the cinema where the film The Artist finishes with a big tap dancing number. And very fine it is too. It completely redeems the film in which there was no engagement with cricketing issues and sends the audience into the street with a smile on their face. 'There is no misery known to man that could not be made passably better by a spot of tap dancing.'

There has been remorse and self examination following England's humiliation by Pakistan. There will, the world are promised, be lessons learned and strategies devised. There will be analysis and discussion and no doubt graphs will be prepared. But what the world really wanted was some tap dancing. Regrettably grass is not a good surface for the art, so even had the England team made the effort they could have gone unappreciated. But FB would like to see Test matches finish with a big production number and a happy line of tap dancing. If the England batsmen had got to grips with tap-dancing they might even have learned something about moving their feet which could have helped them in their hour of need. FB is sure that a meticulous coach as Andy Flower will have noted this.

And if you want to know what real tap dancing is - try this link of the Nicholas Brothers from 1943. (Look at the descent of the staircase at about 2.30 in and let your eyes water). No spin bowler would have chance.

Coincidence

2012-02-08T08:00:00.000Z

There are those in the population who are can't help making patterns from any set of numbers on the page - and from time to time Fantasy Bob suffers from this affliction. This often derided section of the community had a rare excitement at lunch on the fourth day of the recently completed Test in Dubai. The thought that England had not done too badly and were only 2 wickets down with 235 to get to pull off the win might well have stirred some pulses among the optimistic. But numerophiles will have noticed something far more interesting. For at that point the batsmen, Pietersen and Cook, both had career averages of 48.93 and the bowlers, Ajmal and Rehman, both had career averages of 26.93. The probability of this happening is in the region of the works of Shakespeare being typed by that proverbial squadron of monkeys. But it is fascinating - at least to Fantasy Bob. Coincidence - or is it? Astrologers would also note that a full moon was on the rise.

Pietersen b Ajmal

Having come together at this precise point in the space time continuum, the figures strayed apart again so that Pietersen having scored another 17 runs before being bowled by Ajmal ended up with his career average now at 48.69 and Cook who got another 8 runs now stands at 48.60. Ajmal and Rehman also drifted apart. Ajmal took 3 for 51 in the final sessions and Rehman 1 for 56 to leave their averages on 26.70 and 27.37 respectively.

It is conceivable that these players will criss-cross again as their Test careers continue. What is the probability of them ending their careers with exactly the same average? Had KP scored 13 fewer runs after lunch they would have remained on exactly the same average. He obviously had not considered this issue as he batted on after Cook's dismissal. This is something the England management must get right in future - they need to take the coincidence out of these coincidences. All coincidences should be carefully planned.

In the list of top 100 Test averages, there are several occasions of identical averages - more than FB expected. Interestingly enough no England players are involved in any of the groupings, which should be an incentive to Cook and Pietersen.

There appear to be 6 groups of identical batting averages, but a closer examination finds this is a product of the rounding convention used. Figures are reported to 2 decimal places, but have not been not rounded. Where this convention is used, only one instance of identical averages is left. And, numerophiles can go weak at the knees again, this involves 3 batsmen, Gary Kirsten, Misbah-ul-Haq and Justin Langer who all average 45.27. Since Misbah is still playing - and after his triumphant victory over England may well add significantly to his 31 Tests it seems he is only temporarily parked. So the trio is just one of those coincidences.

Bert Vogler

Forgetting the rounding up issue for the moment, Graeme Smith and AB deVilliers are both on 49.42 - so there may be a chance that they end up the same at the end of their careers. something to watch - will they do better than Cook and Pietersen. There is a strange symmetry between the 2 pairs. But that may just be coincidence.

Similarly on the bowling front, there are only 3 pairs in the top 100. Again no English player is involved. Once the figures are rounded however, there is only one pair left - J V Saunders and AE Vogler. Both these bowlers average 22.73. Saunders played 14 Tests for Australia between 1902 and 1908, taking 79 wickets and Vogler 15 Tests for S Africa between 1906 and 1911 taking 64 wickets. Although their careers overlapped, they never played against each other in Tests. However their moustaches remained the identical lengths throughout their careers. But that might just be coincidence.

The Fitewash

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000Z

The airwaves from UAE have been full of references to whitewash following Pakistan's trouncing of the Number 1 Test nation in their 3 match series. But Fantasy Bob is interested to learn that one voice amongst the triumphant team might well be using a different pronunciation.

In rural Aberdeenshire, the hinterland of FB's north east childhood, where a pure and easily understood form of language called the Doric is used, the letters 'wh' at the start of a word are pronounced 'f.' So a whitewash in Aberdeenshire is a fitewash, just as the region's celebrated greeting 'Fit like min?' can be literally translated as 'What like man?' (Should readers be so addressed, they may wish to know that the allowable answers to this inquiry are - 'Nae bad foo's yersel' (Not bad, how are you yourself?) or 'Jist chauvin'on' (Struggling by).......but FB digresses..........Fit a surprise....)

Ali - just a Huntly loon

Huntly is one of the larger towns in rural Aberdeenshire and a fine place it is too, home amongst other things to the Gordon Highlanders and Deans Shortbread. Jim Naughtie of Radio 4's Today programme is one of its proud sons. Among its many attractions, Huntly boasts a highly successful and thriving cricket club. Over several recent years, the club enjoyed the services of Azhar Ali - the very same Azhar Ali whose 157 in the 3rd Test was largely responsible for Pakistan's eventual victory. He has put Huntly on the cricketing map

Raul Dravid, Ed Cowan, George Bailey and now Azhar Ali - international cricket is increasingly awash with players who have experienced Scottish conditions. These are more recent additions to a strong tradition on which FB has posted previously.

And who's to say that the experience in those conditions has not helped them refine their technique on what are sometimes difficult surfaces? Maybe Ian Bell would benefit from a spell in God's country?

FB has not heard Azhar interviewed, but he is sure that having passed so many of his formative years in Huntly he would have a touch of the Doric about him and would readily agree that after the 'fitewash' he was 'feeling affa fine at scoring a puckle o' runs'. He is after all 'just an orra loon daein' fit he can for the team.'

FB says to Ali, 'Well done, loon. You're a credit to Huntly and to Aberdeenshire.'

More Dead Than Alive?

2012-02-06T08:00:00.000Z

Readers need not worry. The title of this post is not a reference to the comment that is frequently applied to Fantasy Bob's efforts in the field. They are thus spared a lengthy exposition on FB's once legendary but now sadly diminishing prowess square of the wicket. A more serious subject arises and FB promises his readers yet more completely useless information.

Fantasy Bob had never previously heard of the Population Reference Bureau. Apparently it is a Washington based agency which does lots of sums and makes lots of graphs about population growth and its impacts on the economy and the environment and, FB presumes, the implications for Doughty Groundsmen having to prepare cricket wickets.

FB is led to understand that the the fact that world's population is now in excess of 7 billion means that the question as to whether there are more people alive now than have lived in the whole history of human-kind is the regular subject of discussion at polite dinner parties. Hostesses the world over are anxious that they may not have prepared sufficient canapies. (FB does not understand this from direct experience since he is never invited to dinner parties, polite or otherwise).

However in a helpful act, a recent publication by this Population Reference Bureau investigated the question more systematically. Hostesses will now know when they can safely stop wrapping the asparagus in prosciutto.

The Bureau has concluded that the total number of people that have lived since the emergence of homo sapiens 50,000 years ago is 107,602,707,791.

This is a splendidly accurate number - not 107,602,707,792, far less107,602,707,790 but 107,602,707,791, exactly. This may seem a large number but it is only marginally fewer than the runs FB conceded off his bowling last season.

FB was unable to find the cricket section of the Bureau's report. So he is left without an answer to the more pressing question as to whether there are now more Test cricketers alive than have lived since humankind found itself on the planet and the first hunter gatherer turned his arm over.

FB's own researches, unassisted by huge research council grant of any sort tell him that in the whole arc of human history there have been 2452 Test cricketers. Those who were capped before 1960 number 1097, those before 1970 total 1402.

Jeff Stollmeyer - 32 Tests - 13 as captain
2159 runs @ 42.33

Statisticians do not suggest that being a Test cricketer gives a person a higher mortality than any other profession. While 13 First Class cricketers are reported to have been murdered, only one, former W Indian skipper Jeff Stollmeyer, who died in 1989 at the age of 68 from wounds following an intrusion to his home, has Test status. There are a number who have died young - Graham Dilley for example who died last year - or who have suffered tragic accidents - Ben Hollioake for example. But applying normal mortality statistics allows FB to state with reasonable confidence that there are more Test cricketers alive now than there are who have gone before to the Pavilion in the sky.

He offers this information to his worldwide readership as yet another completely useless bit of information to be gleaned from his postings. He is confident that this will result in a large number of invitations to dinner parties.

Self Destruction 2

2012-02-05T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob would like to apologise to all supporters of the Scottish Rugby team the undue influence he exerts on the team.

Unknown to him, the team obviously numbers itself among FB's worldwide readership of 3. As such they took closely to heart the subject of yesterday's post on this blog - self-destruction. FB's innocent intention was to make light commentary on the English cricket team's batting struggles in the UAE. Regrettably the Scottish rugby team took the posting as an instruction and at Murrayfield yesterday delivered the Calcutta Cup match to a poor an uninspiring English team in a fashion that leaves even FB's extensive vocabulary bereft of the appropriate description.

While he's on the subject, FB also noted that England's bowling effort imploded too.

FB promises Andy Robinson and Andy Flower to choose the subjects of his posts more carefully in future.

FB to blame

Self Destruction

2012-02-04T08:00:00.000Z

The skippers agree to go for the record

As England's batsmen are continually finding out in the UAE, self-destruction can take many forms. There is the tentative, the assertive, the regretful, the unjust, the unexpected and even the determinedly suicidal. England's top six have tried them all. Yesterday, they managed to get their opposite numbers to imitate them. With a fair wind the Third Test could be over this afternoon.

Fantasy Bob suspects that both teams conspiring to beat the record for the most wickets to fall in a day. If so, they failed lamentably. Their 203 for 16 is nowhere near the 157 for 27 that England and Australia achieved in 1888. But this record has been under pressure recently and it is understandable that England and Pakistan might wish to have a go at it. South African and Australia had a good go at that record at Cape Town in November last year when 23 wickets fell for 294 runs. And New Zealand and Zimbabwe also had a creditable attempt last month when 22 wickets fell for 297. But yesterday's score at 12.75 per wicket shades it against the Cape Town score per wicket of 12.78, so yesterday's players can feel proud.

Nor does it look likely that the record for the lowest match aggregate of runs is in danger - that was set by Australia and S Africa at Melbourne in 1932 when a total of 234 runs in 3 innings gave Australia a 72 run victory. The match took 109.2 overs to complete - ironically it was advertised as a timeless test.

It would take several exceptional acts of self-destruction for the latter record to be beaten. However 4 February 2012 sees the centenary of one of the more splendid acts of self-destruction.

Reichelt modelling his parachute suit

Franz Reichelt was an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, who become fixated on developing a suit that would convert easily into a parachute and allow airmen to survive should they have to leave their aircraft. Initial experiments conducted with dummies dropped from the fifth floor of his apartment building had been successful, but he was unable to replicate those early successes with any of his subsequent designs. He thought he need a higher platform and requested permission to use the Eiffel Tower. He was eventually granted permission in early 1912 to test from the Eiffel Tower. The authorities may have thought he was going to use dummies but when he, and an army of spectators, arrived at the tower he made it clear that he intended to jump himself. His friends and spectators tried unsuccessfully to dissuade him. After modelling his suit on the gorund, he climbed to the first platform of the tower, got into position and, with a flourish, danced down the wicket and launched himself into thin air. The parachute failed to deploy and he crashed into the icy ground at the foot of the tower killing him instantly. The event was caught on many cameras and in a newsreel film.

Despite making his supreme sacrifice, Reichelt is not regarded as an important figure in the development of parachuting. Only for his untimely end. Posterity is endlessly cruel. How will it recall the players in the present match? How much more self-destruction will there be?

Bell's Tummy

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000Z

Can the Bopara vaccine work?

The run up to the Third Test between Pakistan and England has been dominated by medical issues. Experts have been divided on whether the existence of a new medical condition has been firmly established.

Some doctors consider that the condition dubbed Bell's Tummy is new to medical science. The symptoms include acute agitation of the ajmals and stiffness in the doosras. Excessive sweating of the teesras and visual impairment, in which red spherical objects are rendered invisible, have also been reported as associated with the sudden onset of the condition. It is followed by media declarations of feeling sick and vomiting may take place privately.

Other experts were suggesting that this condition is simply a more virulent version of the previously identified syndrome Trott's Trottitis, in which a patient's rehmans suffer temporary spasm. Other experts contend that the condition may also be related to Morgan's Organs, hitherto seen as a psychosomatic condition in which all hope is lost.

There are fears that this condition could lead to an epidemic risking a mass outbreak of whitewash. Scientists have therefore been working hard to identify a vaccine and some have suggested that a course of Boparas could be the most efficacious way of avoiding any permanent effects.

Candlemas

2012-02-02T08:00:00.000Z

If Candlemas Day is clear and bright,
winter will have another bite.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain,
winter is gone and will not come again.

Candlemas is today, 2 February, 40 days after Christmas and the point equidistant between the winter solstice and spring equinox.

Fantasy Bob assures his readers that Candlemas day is of intense interest to cricketers, for it is traditionally the day that Doughty Groundsmen the world over come out of hibernation. If it is cloudy when the doughty groundsman emerges, it will leave its burrow and fire up the heavy roller (see footnote), signifying that winter-like weather will soon end. If it is sunny, the doughty groundsman will see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and the winter weather will continue for 6 more weeks with implications for the start of outdoor nets.

In the USA they do not have Doughty Groundsmen to assist them in this way, so they have imposed this duty on a groundhog, the next best thing in their eyes. It is not a perfect replacement. Groundhogs are indifferent at manning the heavy roller, but are highly skilled at the hibernation side of things.

Groundhog Day is a big thing in some parts of the US. The largest celebration is held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania which received widespread attention following the success of the 1993 film Groundhog Day. In that film a cantankerous reporter has to live through the same day as time stands still.

Had that film been set in a cricket playing country it could well have been entitled Doughty Groundsman Day, which FB thinks has a certain ring to it. It could have told the story of a time loop where a touring cricket team found themselves repeating the same experience of being bowled out on a spinners' track again and again. But such a story might have seemed too unlikely, even for Hollywood.

There are those who hold that all these fixations reflect a pagan tradition – which is not to say that Doughty Groundsmen are necessarily pagan although that might account for a lot. The Celtic Sabbat of Imbolc, which was celebrated in pre-Christian Europe at about the same time of year as another occasion to drive out the darkness. The US celebration has its origins in German traditions and the belief that it was when bears and wolves came out of hibernation.

Purification of the Virgin by Hans Holbein

The pagan tradition has elided with the Christian calendar, for Candlemas derives from the practice whereby a priest on 2 February blessed candles for use throughout the year, some of which were distributed to the faithful for use in the home. This in turn reflects that on the 40th day after his birth Jesus was first presented to the Temple in Jerusalem and his mother purified. The Bible says that he was recognised by a holy man Simeon who called him a light for revelation. So the day has a focus on light.

At one time in Scotland children took candles to school on Candlemas day, but as gas and then electric light were introduced and the need for candles receded they took money instead with which the teacher bought cakes or sweets. The child taking the most money was designated Candlemas King or Queen for 6 weeks during which they could rule an afternoon as play time and let others off punishments. FB has to confess that although he went to school in Scotland during the late middle ages he never encountered this custom. He therefore missed the opportunity to mandate cricket practice on his class mates. More's the pity.

Footnote - FB would like to stress that his reference to the heavy roller here is purely for artistic effect - he is fully aware that any proper DG would not turn first to the heavy roller on coming out of hibernation. Nevertheless he expects comment from designated representatives of DGs the world over to point out his poor understanding of their art.

February

2012-02-01T08:00:00.000Z

At the start of January, Fantasy Bob celebrated Pilot's song January. For February he celebrates another Scottish contribution to poptastic history, if not quite so distinguished as Pilot's great song. January February was released by Barbara Dickson released on 25 January, 1980 and reached its high point of number 11 in the UK charts in April 1980, spending 10 weeks in the charts in all.

Barbara Ruth Dickson, OBE was born in Dunfermline and started out on the folk scene before breaking into mainstream pop, assisted by a resident slot in the Two Ronnies TV show where she was seen by more than 10 million viewers every week. She also had some success as an award winning actress including Anita Braithwaite in TV's Band of Gold and l Mrs. Johnstone in Willy Russell's long-running musical Blood Brothers.

An all round performer then. At the time that this record was climbing the charts, cricket saw one of the great all round performances of recent history. England played India in Dehli in February 1980 in a one off Test to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Botham dominated the match which England won by 10 wickets. He took 13 wickets and scored 114 in his only innings. One of 5 times that he had a 5-fer and a century in the same match. No other player nears that achievement.

Botham apart, the match was not considered to be a high quality encounter. England were on their way home from a 3-0 whitewash in Australia and India were knackered after 16 Tests in 7 months. But there were other points of interest. England must have thought they had got home early for the pitch was uncharacteristically grassy and the weather overcast. Just like home. England keeper Bob Taylor established a new world Test record by taking 10 catches in the match, 7 in the first innings. His record was overtaken by Jack Russell's 11 catches against S Africa in 1995. 7 catches in an innings remains the record, shared by Taylor and 3 other keepers.

Taylor also contributed with the bat - his stand of 171 with Botham allowed England to recover from 58 for 5 in their first innings to post a lead of 54. Yet their stand could have been cut short at 85 when umpire Rao upheld an appeal against Taylor for a catch behind off Kapil Dev. Taylor hesitated and Viswanath, the Indian captain, fielding at first slip, said that there had been no contact and persuaded the umpire to rescind his verdict. They had to make their own DRS in those steam-powered days.

England had expected a spinning wicket and played Underwood and Emburey. In the event Underwood bowled only 7 overs and Emburey none at all. As for the Indians, only one wicket they took went to their spinner Dilip Doshi. Conditions today's England squad would die for when they visit India next winter.

Free as the wind

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob how expects radical improvement in England's performance for the rest of the tour following today's announcement that Tommy Sheridan is available for selection again.

Tommy Sheridan
leaving prison reunited with his bowling coach

There may be those among Fantasy Bob's readership who have not heard of Tommy Sheridan. They may, for example, wonder if he is one of the many bowlers who took 5 wickets on debut last year, but whose names even FB finds hard to recall at the drop of a hat....Sheridan sounds Australian................or South African......or something. On the other hand there may be those who have forgotten him altogether, deliberately or otherwise.

For those who are struggling: Tommy Sheridan is a firebrand left-wing Scottish politician. He is frequently described as colourful, if for no other reason than that he is addicted to the tanning machine and so is usually a Jordanesque shade of orange. Eighteen or so months ago Sheridan was jailed having been found guilty of perjury during his preceding successful defamation case against the News of the World who made allegations of his predelictions for sex clubs and the like.

Sheridan was released from prison today on licence to spend the last 6 months of his sentence at home secured by an electronic tag. During his time inside, a lot of News of the World water has flown under the bridge, indeed the NOW is no more. Tommy is therefore a man with a mission (again - or still) and has shown every inclination to carry on challenging many aspects of his case.

It was suggested at first that Sheridan would also be subject to a gagging order - ie he would not be allowed to speak in public, on pain of having to return to prison. However this order has now been lifted and the celebration is immense. Andy Flower is only one of the many who have welcomed this development. He has already called the Scottish authorities to express his gratitude. For it means that England's under pressure coach will have the benefit of Sheridan's views for the next Test match and the following ODIs as he tries to restore the credibility of his team's batting order.

Now, Tommy Sheridan may not know much about cricket, but what he doesn't know about spin is not worth knowing.

Radical improvement in England's prospects is therefore guaranteed.

Flower speaks out

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob reads that England coach Andy Flower says that he is 'not afraid' to change things following the poor performance in Abu Dhabi.

Flower said he was proud of the world-class cliches in the side, but the collapse against spin is the type of cliche he can do without. He will be looking for something else for the next match.

These are the originally selected cliches who went down to a 72 run defeat on Saturday.

England in a spin
England on back foot
England lost in the desert
England have learnt how not to lose
Bell to bat higher
Bell to bat lower
Pietersen one innings off his best
Swan and Monty - meet the new spin twins
Strauss - Captain Confused
Anderson swings into action
England pluck defeat from jaws of victory

Flower said, 'Continuity of cliche has been one of our strengths in the past. But we have to choose the cliches who can adapt to the circumstances.'

Cliche watchers can therefore look forward to the return to Test cricket of 'Bopara given another chance....'

England Triumph

2012-01-29T08:00:00.000Z

England delivered a decisive victory yesterday easily passing Zimbabwe's 51 all out ...............

Oh dear, it is all a bit of a shambles. Cook said that they could chase 250 - Azhad said he thought 150 would be enough.............Did England believe that they could get the total? This was the real thing from the first ball of the match on Wednesday, every ball mattered.

Even following the ball by ball report the final innings looked tough. The names Rehman and Ajmal seemed to glow on the screen, while the English names barely registered. Who needs pictures? Dot after dot suggested that England's top order had never faced a left arm spinner or an off spinner before.

Who have they been practising against? Might it be an option for them to face Monty and Swann in the nets? They look pretty good.

Where have all our batters gone?

Isle of Wonder

2012-01-28T08:00:00.000Z

Bosses at go-ahead Edinburgh cricket club Carlton yesterday announced their exciting plans for their opening ceremony.

A model for Carlton's opening ceremony
- the British Team -
the White City 1908

Noting that the Government had recently doubled the budget for the event, a spokesperson for the club said, 'It is an awesome responsibility having so much money to waste, but we are fully committed to throwing it away.'

The spokesperson was tight-lipped about details of the ceremony, except to say that it would be called 'I'll wonder........ what the point is.'

He also revealed that the spectacle would involve dancing nurses. The spokesperson said, 'With Fantasy Bob and other senior members of the All Stars Fourth XI participating, there is always the risk of a medical emergency, so we thought we'd better have help at hand.' There are also plans for a bell to be installed at the Grange Loan ground - so far the planning committee has not reached a view whether the one playing Greensleeves or Auld Lang Syne is to be preferred. Both are reasonably priced at HomeBase.

In a surprise move following recent controversy, the club announced that babies would be allowed in to all events without a ticket provided they made themselves available to play for the Fourth XI.

The Hunting of the Snark

2012-01-27T08:00:00.000Z

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was born 180 years ago today. As Lewis Carroll, Dodgson gave the world Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass and many classics of nonsense verse. Test Match Quality.

Alice Liddell age 7

The books originated in stories he told to the children of the Dean of Christ Church Oxford and the central character, the little girl who fell down the rabbit hole, was in tribute to Alice Liddell the Dean’s second daughter.

Cricketers will find it of interest that some time after the publication of these books, Alice Liddell married a cricketer Reginald Hargreaves – at Westminster Abbey, no less, in 1880. Whether her adventures down the rabbit hole had anything to do with this is not clear.

Alice Liddell as an adult

Hargreaves played 25 First Class matches for Hampshire, and also for the MCC and Gentlemen of England, and when he died in 1926 was still Vice President of Hampshire. His bowling style is described in the records as underarm. Alice’s sister Edith was also due to marry a cricketer but she died of measles before the wedding. Alice died in 1934 at the age of 82.

However Dodgson was not a cricketer, and, on the whole whatever other merits Alice’s adventures have, there is a disappointing lack of cricketing reference in his work. However FB now suspects that that this was due to self-censorship of some kind. His famous poem The Hunting of the Snark describes 'the impossible voyage of an improbable crew lead by the Bellman to find an inconceivable creature'. The published edition, contains 8 parts (Carroll calls it an Agony in Eight Fits). But FB has discovered an early draft of an additional ninth section that seems to have been discarded for some reason. FB unselfishly shares this literary treasure with his readers. Even to FB’s untutored eye it seems to reveal a heightened sense of the psychology of cricketers as well as being uncannily prescient of recent events in Abu Dhabi. Could the Bellman be a cipher for an English batsman?

They shuddered when the bowler said to the Press

I’ve a new ball for Bellman and friend

Forget the doosra, the teesra is dead

It’s the SNARK which they’ll have to defend

It’s a SNARK when it spins and a SNARK when it don’t

When it floats when it bounces or flips

It’s a SNARK if your middle stump is knocked down

It’s a SNARK when the edge finds the slips

So they hunted the SNARK in each over bowled

They studied each ball carefully

Was that the SNARK when the arm wasn’t high

Wasn’t that just like Murali?

It’s a SNARK when it comes from the front of the hand

It’s a SNARK when the wrist flicks it out

It’s a SNARK if it pitches on off or leg stump

It’s a SNARK how can there be doubt

They batted till darkness came on and they found

Not a signal, or evident mark

By which they could tell if the ball that they faced

Was that demon deliv’ry the SNARK

Standing alone at the end of the day

In the midst of applause mixed with glee

It all softly and suddenly vanished away

For the SNARK was a BOOJUM you see

Lamingtons

2012-01-26T07:00:00.000Z

The Lamington

Australia Day and Fantasy Bob thinks it fit to celebrate Australia's greatest contribution to human civilisation and progress. Just in case your cricketing interest begins to flag, hang on - the cricket link will come.

The Lamington is a chocolate and coconut covered sponge cake of which all Australians should be rightly proud. However it is not named after an Australian. Like all good things on God's earth, particularly sweet and buttery things, it has a Scottish connection.

Lamington is a small Scottish village in South Lanarkshire. It is said to be the home of Marion Braidfute, wife of William Wallace. William Wallace was once thought of as a Scottish freedom fighter but was was found in the 1980s actually to be an Australian actor with a bad accent.

So, might Mrs Wallace have been a keen member of the baking section of the Lanarkshire WRI who developed this delicacy to keep her man well fed while he hounded the English out of Scotland's borders? Historians are not convinced. 'You may take our lives but you'll never take our Lamingtons' - it doesn't really carry the ring that would echo down the centuries. Besides, Mrs Wallace's attempts to make the cake would have been severely frustrated by the failure of the 13th Century Scottish supermarket to offer sugar, coconut and chocolate to their customers. Life must have been tough.

The Rt Hon
The Lord Lamington
KCMG GCIE

No, the Lamington is named after the 2nd Baron of Lamington, Charles Wallace Alexander Napier Cochrane-Baillie. Lord Lamington was Governor of Queensland from 9 April 1896 to 19 December 1901. There are alternative accounts of the cake's origin during that time - whether the chef in Governor's House devised it making improvised use of the ingredients he had to hand for unexpected guests, or whether a kitchen maid accidentally dropped some cake in chocolate and made the best of it by covering her finger marks with coconut - readers can take their pick. Whatever its origin, the Lamington has gone on to become a firm favourite in Australia and is at the heart of many fund raising drives by sporting clubs.

Lord Lamington himself was a ferociously conservative governor at a time that Australia was forming itself into something like its present Federation. He saw reds and republicans under every bed. But he was not exceptional in that stance and as a group the Governors did not endear themselves to the population. But at least he had the cake. So much so that republican politicians in Australia claim that extensive research had identified the Lamington as the solitary positive achievement of any Governor since the First Fleet arrived in 1788.

His Lordship was not particularly fond of the cake he gave his name to and, showing a decidedly Australian turn of phrase for one of his background, is reported to have described the cakes as 'those bloody poofy woolly biscuits.'

Ranjit -
a true prince and a princely bat

Readers might be weary for lack of a cricket angle in this posting. Fear not. A close friend of Lamington while he was at Oxford was the great batsman Prince Ranjitsinghi who visited him in Brisbane in November 1897 when touring with the England team under Andrew Stoddart. Although Brisbane was not on the Test itinerary at that time, England played a combined NSW and Queensland XI at what is now the Gabba. The match was drawn and Ranjit scored 67 in England's innings of 636.

It is not known whether the Prince shared his host's view of the Lamington. If he did sample the confection while at Governor's House it did him no harm. A fortnight later in the First Test at Sydney he scored his highest Test innings of 175 in England's only victory of the series. They ended up on the wrong end of a 4-1 drubbing. Did the newly popular Lamington play any part in the Australian team's success? FB would not be surprised.

To a Mouse

2012-01-25T07:00:00.000Z

Scottish cricketers wha hae. There's the chieftain o' the puddin race - haggis - on the tea table the nicht.

Robert Burns would have been 263 years old today, had he not died at the artistically fashionable age of 37. As Fantasy Bob has reported previously, the cricketer has to search carefully in the Kilmarnock edition for works that relate to cricket. Many authoritative scholars have concluded that there are none. However FB is made of sterner stuff, and in the National Library he recently discovered a crumpled, claret-stained manuscript that has been authenticated as in the hand of the Bard. In these never-seen-before verses, Burns seems strangely prescient for the fate of the Engish team locked in a tense Test struggle with Pakistan. Here is this newly discovered masterpiece which shows his deep concern about what might happen in the next few days in Abu Dhabi. Poets will hope his pessimism is unfounded.

To A Strauss

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,

Oh, whit a panic's in thy breastie!

The test at Dubai ends o’er hastie

Thou'rt in a sochter

Noo Abu Dhabiwon’t be tasty

It could be slaughter

For whiles thy bowlers a’ got passes

Thy fancy batters played like arses

When one is oot, the rest collapses

They lookit wabbit

KP played like he had paral’sis

An' Bell’s a rabbit

We micht hae looked for some resilience

Frae those wha tak IPL’smillions

But what we got wis far frae brilliance

Exceptin' Prior

Micht Panesar mak unco diff’rence

To fecht fire wi' fire?

Thon Ajmal won’t be ony easier

Bowlin' his new fangledteesra

Bell could hae an unco seizure

Hoo can he pick it?

Watchin’ sic torture brings naepleasure

Leg afore wicket

Ah Straussie thou art insecure

Ye’re staunin' deep in thick manure

The best laid schemes o’Andy Floo'er

Gang aft agley

When spinners bowl into the stoor
Ye’ve feet o' clay

For those who canna read Scots:

sleekit - shiny, smooth
sochter - mess, confusion
wabbit - tired
thon - that
staunin - standing
agley - wrong, askew
stoor - dust

The Year of the Dragon

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000Z

We have just entered the Year of the Dragon. Indeed, to dip a little further into Chinese astrology, we have just entered the Year of the Water Dragon. Fantasy Bob discovers that he was born in the year of the Water Dragon.

This is hugely significant. As FB researched the mysteries of Chinese astrology, he discovered that his fate was written in the stars at birth. There is only one position that could fulfil that destiny - skipper of the Carlton All Star 4th XI.

Consider the evidence. The Chinese dragon is not seen as a threatening evil being as we do in the west - the Chinese associate the dragon with power and wisdom. In Chinese astrology therefore a dragon person is special, they are powerful and wise. The Chinese Year of the Dragon person stands out. There is a certain aura about them. Is this not how the cricket world regards FB? FB is too modest to blow his own trumpet on the wisdom and power angles but concedes that the reference to aura suggests he should change his socks more frequently.

Water has a calming effect on the Dragon's fearless temperament allowing it to re-direct its enthusiasm, and makes it more perceptive of others. These Dragons are better equipped to take a step back to re-evaluate a situation because they understand the art of patience and do not desire the spotlight like other Dragons. Therefore, they make smart decisions and are able to see eye-to-eye with other people. However, their actions can go wrong if they do not research or if they do not finish one project before starting another.

It is uncanny. Any one who has seen FB turn down successive LBW appeals from highly excitable junior bowlers; or who has seen FB stoically declining a quick single out of concern for the hamstrings of his batting partner; or has seen his ability to secure the final empire biscuit on the tea table for himself through empathic and silent communication with his team mates; or who has been in the same dressing room with his calm, indeed comatose, indecision immediately before going out to the toss will know how accurate this description is. These Chinese know a thing or two. And they managed all this without actually meeting FB.

There are more babies born in Dragon years than in any other animal years of the Zodiac. So a boom in future 4th XI skippers is expected.

Jive Talking

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob woke from semi-consciousness to find the televisual machine in the corner leaking out a programme about the Nation's Favourite Bee Gees songs.

'As Voted By You' was the strap line. FB blinked. How long had he slumbered? He has heard recent rumours of a referendum in Scotland about something or other - this must have been it and it has passed without FB exercising his franchise.

But he rapidly resumed his slumbering condition when it became clear that this programme would concentrate only on the 3 Gibb brothers who became renowned for their tight white trousers and falsetto voices. There was even some space for the fourth brother, Andy, who died at the sad early age of 30 in 1988.

Where is Herschelle?

There was little to interest the cricketer since the producers conspicuously failed to mention the cricketing Gibb. FB concludes that this man must be considered the black sheep of the family. So black in his sheepiness, in fact, that this fifth brother, Herschelle, had to change his name slightly and withdraw to the safe distance of South Africa. Like all good pop stars, Gibbs' prodigious talents as a batsman and a fielder were accompanied by brushes with controversy. His back catalogue of songs deals with both sides of his character.

Here are the nation's favourite Herschelle Gibbs songs, as voted by you:

10) I Gotta Get a Message to You - Gibbs was caught up in the match fixing affair with Hansie Cronje, who offered him $15,000 to score fewer than 20 in the 3rd ODI of the 2000 series in India. He tearfully claimed to the King Commission of inquiry into corruption in South African cricket that he did not follow through, in fact scoring a fine 74. As a result he was banned for only six months.
9) Islands in the Stream - During the 2007 World Cup his 6 hitting raised $1 million for the Habitat for Humanity housing projects as part of a contest run by tournament sponsor Johnnie Walker. The award of citizenship by St Kitts and Nevis followed.
8) How Can You Mend a Broken Heart? - Gibbs is one of only three batsmen in ODI history to score hundreds in 3 consecutive innings, the others being Zaheer Abbas and Saeed Anwar. He then had a chance to become the only batsman to score 4 hundreds in a row. Gibbs fell just 3 runs short, finishing unbeaten on 97 when the winning runs were conceded by 4 wides. Tragedy.
7) Night Fever - In the 2009 IPL Final, Gibbs was crucial to Declan Chargers' win by scoring an unbeaten 53 (off 48 balls). He also took a crucial catch to dismiss Mark Boucher.
6) More Than a Woman - a man for partnerships - Gibbs and Graeme Smith are the only pair in Test history to have stands of 300 on three occasions. He also holds the South African second wicket record, a partnership of 315* with Jacques Kallis.
5) Stayin’ Alive - his international career ended with his final ODI against India in February 2010. In season 2011-12 he has played for the Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League - his 69 off 48 balls against Melbourne Stars on 4 January won him the man of the match award.
4) Words - In January 2007, Gibbs faced a disciplinary panel after making racist comments during a Test against Pakistan. He defended himself by saying that his words were not directed at opposing players but at members of the crowd after teammate Paul Harris had been abused by them whilst fielding. But Gibbs was banned for two Tests, a verdict changed on appeal to one Test, one ODI and one T20.
3) Massachusetts - (a mis-hearing of massive-six-hits) - He became the first player to hit 6 sixes in one over in ODI cricket against the Netherlands in the 2007 World Cup. His six hitting continued throughout the tournament and he levelled Ricky Ponting's record of 28 sixes in World Cup history.
2) You Win Again - a fielder of the highest quality, Gibbs famously dropped a catch in a 1999 World Cup game against Australia, when he attempted to throw the ball up into the air in celebration before he had full control. Steve Waugh then went on to make a century and win the game for Australia, a victory which also gave the Australian side crucial momentum to go on and win the tournament. Reports that Waugh had sledged Gibbs with the statement, 'You've just dropped the World Cup, mate.' have subsequently been denied by Waugh.
1) How Deep is Your Love? - Saffies are difficult to love - but this man at least deserves respect - 90 Tests, 6167 runs at 41.95, 14 hundreds; 248 ODIs, 8094 runs at 36.13, 21 hundreds

Hockney

2012-01-22T08:00:00.000Z

Hockney and painting

British painter David Hockney has been getting big licks this week following the opening of an exhibition of new paintings at the Royal Academy in London. Quite right - he is a fine artist, even though he has not painted a single picture remotely concerned with cricket. A sad reflection on modern Yorkshire, where he was born and bred. What would F S Trueman say?

Fantasy Bob admires Hockney as a painter. He also applauds him for his outspoken rubbishing of the frauds of Brit Art and the conceptual movement. Unlike Hockey, their failure to address cricket in their work has no redeeming features.

One of the points of interest about Hockney is that he is synesthetic. That is in response to musical tones, he involuntarily sees colours. This is one form of the condition where stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic involuntary experiences in a second pathway. Apparently there are 60 such types of this condition which have been reported, but the form enjoyed - or suffered - by Hockney is perhaps the most commonly known. A number of other creative artists are reported to have had a similar condition - among them Liszt, Scriabin, Kandinsky and Duke Ellington. How this has affected their creative lives is not wholly clear, although Scriabin was explicit in trying to link his works to colour and one of Ellington's greatest tunes was Mood Indigo. Hockney makes little use of it, although his set designs for opera and ballet are said to have been stimulated by his direct visual response to the relevant music.

Other forms of synesthesia are more exotic for example, letters or numbers can be seen as inherently coloured, or days of the week can evoke personalities or precise locations in space. Another recently discovered type means that visual motion is accompanied by sounds.

Fantasy Bob can find no reference to sportspersons, or cricketers, in particular having this condition. Is that surprising? Perhaps not although some sportspersons are said to have heightened perception eg Viv Richards' eyesight was reported to be so acute that he could pick out faces in the crowd many metres away. He also picked out the cricket ball pretty effectively. Would he have been more effective had he heard it coming as well? How would it be if a ball spinning in different directions induced a different tone in the batsman's ear? This could be highly useful particularly to English batsmen right at the moment. Off break - middle C, Leg break Eflat. Doosra F-sharp. Of course we would probably then find that they were all tone deaf..........and so would be no further forward.

Perhaps Hockney was right after all not to think about cricket painting.

A new Hockney non cricket painting

Those Difficult Questions

2012-01-21T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob reads that a survey conducted by the Big Bang Young Scientists and Engineers Fair has identified the science questions that children ask which their parents find most difficult to answer. They are:

Why is the Moon sometimes out in the day?
Why is the sky blue?
Will we ever discover aliens?
How much does the earth weigh?
How do aeroplanes stay up?

Apparently 16% of parents when confronted by questions like this suggest that their beloved infant asks Daddy or Mummy - and 20% just make up an answer. After the child reaches 16 they generally find out that the explanation that Fairies make it happen is not generally well received by the inquiring youthful mind.

Fairies might be the
scientifically correct answer

Fantasy Bob hangs his head in despair. These questions are pretty easy - find the answers on this link. A far harder set of questions can be found revealed in another part of the survey. No parent will welcome any of these questions if they are fired out by the inquiring and youthful mind as it surfaces from its immersion in X-box:

Why can't England bat against spin bowling?
Strauss says the top 6 was caught cold on the first session - what did they expect?
Why does KP think a hook with 2 men behind square is a safe option when he is on 0?
Would Ian Bell be better closing his eyes when facing Ajmal?
Is Bopara really the only alternative batter we have?

Scientists agree that there may be no answers to these questions. So parents are perfectly entitled to refer to fairies in their answers.

Hahnenkamm

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000Z

'So, Fantasy Bob – here is your mission......should you choose to accept it.

'You are at 1665 metres above sea level. The snow-covered ground in front of you slopes away at a gradientof 51%. You are expected to go straight down - and will probably accelerate 0-90kmph in about 3 seconds. In 150 metres the slope becomes85%. You will take off and are likely to be airborne for80 metres. On landing, probablytravelling at well over 100kmph, you have to turn sharp left and cross a wall ofsheet ice on a gradient of 62%.

'You have 2 planks tied to your feet and a stick in each hand…oh, and a plastic helmet.'

Er………….. FB’s first thought is ‘Can we go homenow…………….please?’

This is the start ofthe great Streif on the Hahnenkamm, the downhill ski course in Kitzbuhel, reckoned to be themost testing in the world. There is a history of huge crashes on the course. TheHahnenkamm World Cup race, the blue ribband event on the skiing circuit takes place thisweekend. The winner will cover the3.3km course in a bit under 2 minutes, descending 860 metres. Maximum speed will be over140kmph. Average speed will be over 100kmph. FB isnot competing.

The start, as described above, is terrifyingenough, but it is not even considered the most testing part of the course. That comes about 1 minute in when the legs are beginning to burn and the terrain andlight change and several turns are required. Then, just to bring things to a close,there is a huge jump on the finishing slope.

If you want to know how the legs feel during such a journey– try sitting with your back to the wall knees at right angles but nothingsupporting your bum. Then try it with3.5 times your body weight on your shoulders - for that is what the G-forces and the centrifugal forces do at these speeds.

Fantasy Bob came late to skiing. Growing up in Aberdeen he thought that anyone going into theCairngorms during winter must be mad. Scraping the frost of the window to let in the light so he could find his rugbyshorts was trial enough. But who knows? Had he taken it up earlier he might have been a contender. The racers cover the course in 2minutes. Were FB to ski it he mighttake between 40 and 50 minutes. He would then need to lie down for 2 weeks and be subject to a course of intensive psycho- and physio-therapy. He might never recover.

Cuche

This weekend Didier Cuche of Switzerland will attempt tobecome the Hahnenkammseigler for a record 5^th time and to emulateFranz Klammer’s distinction of winning it 3 times in a row which he did between1975 and 1977. Some hattrick. Cuche is a true skiing great - see his winning run from last year here - but probably nota cricketer...but more on cricket in Switzerland on another occasion.

At the starting gate on every run Cuche reminds himself ‘Pour le plaisir’ –‘For the pleasure.’

That is not quitewhat FB would be saying to himself were he to find himself at the top of the Hahnenkamm................

Boxed Set

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob is enjoying some boxed sets of DVDs which he was lucky enough to receive at Christmas. Not wishing to be outdone by the media moguls, here is FB's Witterings boxed set of his world famous discoveries of previously unregarded cricketing works by major literary figures - The Witterings Six.

Here are links to those undiscovered masterpieces.

AA Milne Jane Austen Raymond Chandler DH Lawrence Robert Burns Ian Fleming

FB's researches are continuing and readers will be dismayed that there is the prospect of more treasures being discovered.

Hail Caesar

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob notes that during this week in 27 BC (about the last time England played 2 spinners) – Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus is granted the title Augustus by the Roman Senate. The historian consider that this marked the beginning of the Roman Empire. Empire biscuits became possible.

While official histories make no mention of empire biscuits, they make it clear that in all other respects Augustus was some guy - as well as regularly massacring those who opposed him he enlarged the empire bringing Egypt, Dalmatia and Spain into it, amongst other places. He reformed the Roman system of taxation, developed networks of roads, established a standing army, established the Praetorian Guard, and created official police and fire-fighting services for Rome. Much of the city was rebuilt under him. On his death in AD14, Augustus was declared a god by the Senate and his names Augustus and Caesar were adopted by every subsequent emperor.

The eighth month of the Roman calendar was renamed Augustus in his honour. FB understands that it was his deathbed wish that his name was given to a month during the cricket season - he rejected all alternative offers suggesting 'You can't have August in February@ FB agrees.

But for all this, Augustus died unfulfilled - he was the victim of a spelling error - for he didn't mean empire he meant umpire. It was his greatest wish to stand in an Ashes Test (or 'in ludo cinerum arbiter esse' as he snappily put it). Proof can be found in the statue illustrated which catches him practising dismissing a Germanic tribesman rapped on the pads by a shooter.

Pakistan v England

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000Z

Oh no! Fantasy Bob has escaped and is off one of those preview type things about real cricket.

In the words of Frank Sinatra -
Dubai, dubai, duo

Pakistan and England begin the first of their 3 Test series today in Dubai. Fantasy Bob doesn't really understand how a non-Test playing country has a number of Test standard stadia. After all he is confident that a city like London would never invest in expensive sporting facilities which might be of minimal use to its citizens ....................................er........................

............as the days hours and minutes ticked down to the start of the game, FB was increasingly tense. When would that phone call come? He could not imagine that Flower and Strauss would want to go into such an important contest without hearing FB's advice on the pressing issue of whether they should play 2 spinners. They would of course completely disregard FB's views..but that is another issue altogether.

England's most recent spin twins

FB cannot recall the last time England went into a Test match with 2 slow bowlers - could it have been as far back as the days of John Emburey and Phil Edmonds in the mid 1980s? So it won't happen now. England will play with their now usual 4 bowlers and it will be sign of Monty's progress over the last year that he will be allowed to carry the water bottles. The injury to Bresnan makes this conclusion unavoidable. However FB fears that the probability of one of the pacemen being injured in the match is high - whichever 3 make the team, probably Anderson, Broad and Tremlett, all have had a period of injury in the last 18 months. England's bowling resources are richness indeed - Finn, Onions and Panesar would all be worthy contributors but will swell the minimal crowd.

While Pakistan-England series are notorious for controversy, all pundits are hoping that this series lives up to its promise on paper. England are worthy leaders of the Test pack, but need to prove that they can play on slower turning wickets. The ODI series in India didn't fill anyone with confidence that they have come very far in that direction. Pakistan are becoming a force again now that the horrors of the spot fixing shambles are behind them.

Have a Teesra.........

The series offers, amongst other tasty morsels, the battle for dominance between the 2 best off spinners in the world - Graham Swann and Saeed Ajmal. Swann has had a quiet year, forced into more of a containing than an attacking role by England's team structure. Saeed, Test cricket's leading wicket taker in 2011, is telling all the world that he has a new ball for the series - the Teesra - the third one. Presumably this will be a straight ball - always in FB's experience the ball of maximum danger. So watch out KP.

Misbah ul-Haq is leading Pakistan effectively, though, like Strauss, he is an overly conservative skipper. So there is unlikely to be much risk taking on either side - and with the slow surface offered a draw seems the most likely outcome even to FB who, as worldwide readers fully understand, knows nothing about these things.

Disaster at Sea

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000Z

Marine experts have rushed to the scene. Investigations are underway. The luxury vessel hailed a year ago as the best in the world lies stricken - it is holed and listing badly. But the once proud ship looks fit only for scrap after she hit the rocks in Perth to go 3-0 down in the series.

Opinions are divided on the reasons for the tragedy.

Indian cricketers cling to the wreckage

Was there a catastrophic failure in the engine room as aging equipment failed to deal with pace and bounce? This lead to water pouring into the middle order leaving survivors fighting for their lives. Or was it a navigation error as high on the bridge the BCCI misread the charts? Did they set the wrong course? Instead of the safe waters they imagined around the ports of T20 and the IPL, there are jagged rocks lurking beneath the surface. Panic seems likely to be averted only by panic.

During the tragedy, only crewman Virat Kohli seems successfully to have found the life boats which the rest of the crew failed to deploy effectively. Senior sailors seemed at a loss to deal with the conditions, forgetting lessons they should have learned in the sea scouts. The life jackets of patience and playing straight seemed to be discarded.

Changes before the mast are likely as the vessel is patched up to go to sea again in Adelaide next week. An emergency rudder is being rigged following the banning of MS Dhoni for slow steering rates.

Full fathom five thy Dhoni lies;
Of his shots are catches made;
Those are snicks that were his drives;
Nothing of him that does fade,
But doth suffer the match fee fine
As he swings again across the line.
Pundits hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong,
Laxman, Sachin, Dravid as well.

Gastronomy

2012-01-15T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob would like to think he is gastronomically adventurous. He will after all eat any Empire Biscuit - he is not fussy like some diners about which empire - Roman, Byzantine, Austro-Hungarian even British, it doesn't matter.

He was also part of moves to take a more radical approach to the cricket tea.

FB is therefore interested to read of another very expensive restaurant which serves dishes of some originality to those who have £150 to spend on dinner. This is a restaurant which takes its diners to pleasures of the plate far beyond the chicken nugget or the fish finger.

The Noma restaurant in Copenhagen has recently gained some attention for serving Christmas trees to its patrons. FB fully supports this development - at this time of the year the streets are filled with abandoned Christmas trees, which stand forlorn and cold in wind, visibly getting balder by the minute waiting to be disposed of. In all respects uncannily like FB in the slips. Why not put them to better use? The restaurant serves freeze dried pine needles as part of its menu - presumably to those who like the taste of disinfectant. FB is sure that they are working on a dish for the rest of the tree.

FB thinks that a British gastronome should follow this example. There is lots of discarded cricket equipment which could form the basis of an exciting new cuisine. For example, FB's cracked bat might well be marinated in a strong red wine, to bring out the linseed taste, then slow roasted with herbs. Finely sliced and served with foie gras, it would present a most agreeable hors d'ouevre. Then the cricket ball after a season being smacked about in the nets should have flavour enough to pep up a sorbet which might be accompanied by a coulis made of liniment and sunscreen. Even FB's socks discarded after his marathon spell up the hill against the wind would form a flavoursome consomme. A cook needs only a little imagination.

The Noma restaurant also serves dishes which are based on live ants or live prawns. Fielders therefore should take care to keep moving in case they too end up in the soup.

Clarkson

2012-01-14T08:00:00.000Z

Clarke turns the screw on Dhoni
by pointing out the satellite
which transmitted Clarkson's programme

Fantasy Bob can report exclusively to his readers that the Board of Control for Cricket in India is considering following the action of the Indian High Commission in London by lodging a strongly worded protest with the British Broacasting Corporation. Well they might.

The Indian High Commission has formally objected to the programme by Jeremy Clarkson broadcast over the Christmas period which was filmed in India and made a string of jokes about Indian food, clothes, toilets, trains and the country's history.

FB understands that a series of so-called hilarious moments during the show included Clarkson driving a Jaguar around an Indian slum with a toilet fitted in the boot, and stripping off his trousers in public in front of two Indian dignitaries to show them how to use a trouser press. He joked that he used it to make naan bread.

The BCCI has said that the Indian batsmen had looked forward to this programme as a highlight of their Christmas viewing. However its offensive tone and mocking of Indian culture had so undermined their morale that their collapse to 161 all out against Australia on the first day of the 3rd Test was inevitable.

MS Dhoni told Fantasy Bob in an exclusive interview, 'I used to be a bit of a fan of Clarkson but never again will I giggle at his offensive poses, his arrogant insensitivity to people different from him and his attention seeking rants. His continuing dismissal of climate change has distressed me to the extent that I increasingly forget where my off stump is. We demand an apology from the BBC and easier bowling from the Australians.'

FB is with the Indians on this. If there is one media person who gets up FB's nose big time, it is Clarkson. FB would rather face leg spin bowling from both ends than watch any of Clarkson's programmes. It is switch-off time even when he appears on Have I Got News For You or QI. And now through these ill considered and unfunny jokes he has single handedly undermined what FB and other cricket fans hoped would be a highly competitive Test series and made it a one sided torment. The BBC should be ashamed of their role in this conspiracy.

FB is aware of the irony of giving Clarkson free publicity in this rant. He looks forward to Clarkson returning the favour by endorsing FB's Witterings in his over frequent media opportunities.

43

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob feels a heady sense of déjà vu.

Fantasy Bob feels a heady sense of déjà vu.

Now his worldwide readership does too. Old jokes never die.

Sri Lanka were all out for 43 in the first ODI against South Africa this week. Last November South Africa bowled Australia out for 47. Among the world-shattering consequences of that event was this simpering post from FB on the incidence of prime numbers in cricket.

FB could well eulogise about prime numbers again, their fascination is endless; but he suspects his worldwide readership of 3 (a prime of course) might find better things to do with their time. So he will confine his comment to recording that 43 is actually the lowest total in ODI cricket that is also a prime number, but Pakistan got there first in 1993 (a prime of course) when they were demolished by South Africa in Cape Town.

But FB thinks it is time to talk of something else.

S Africa’s victory margin of 258 was the third highest run margin in ODI history. The highest ODI victory margin – 290 - was achieved in Scotland. In terms of achievement, not up with the invention of TV or logarithms or the steam engine perhaps, but significant enough.

Remarkably, Scotland itself was not involved in this match. New Zealand beat Ireland on 1 July 2008 at Mannofield in Aberdeen in the first match in a tri-series.

McCullum's
Aberdeen 100

Hamilton
on his way to his Aberdeen 100

NZ slammed their way to 402 with a stand of 247 for the first wicket between Brendon McCullum (his first ODI ton – his 166 contained 10 sixes) and James Marshall, before bowling Ireland out for 112.

The next day Scotland beat Ireland by 5 wickets on the back of a peerless century by Gavin Hamilton, also his first ODI ton, and Dewald Nel’s 4 for 25.

But the pipes did not skirl for long and any feeling of smugness on the part of the Scots was obliterated in the final match of the series when New Zealand dumped them by 8 wickets. The Scots could only muster 101 in their innings, a total NZ overtook in the 15th over.

Just to pile on the Scottish masochism, because after all that’s what we do best, Scotland’s lowest ODI total is a respectable 68 – imposed by West Indies at Leicester in the 1999 World Cup. Scotland’s heaviest runs defeat was also in the World Cup when Australia demolished them by 203 at St Kitts in 2007. 203 is not a prime number – but is the product of 2 prime numbers.

If I was a witch's hat

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000Z

Many of Fantasy Bob's years of adolescent agony were spent listening to the Incredible String Band. This may explain a lot.

The Incredibles originated in the Edinburgh folk scene and built a considerable following, before splitting up in 1974. This ensemble was Edinburgh's only representatives at the great Woodstock Festival in 1969. They were musical pioneers in psych folk and, by integrating a wide variety of traditional music forms and instruments, in the development of world music. The group reformed in 1999 and in various combinations continued to perform until 2006. Robin Williamson and Mike Heron the mainstays are still active individually.

The Incredibles became a legend in their mystical time through a series of albums including The 5000 Spirits, Wee Tam and the Big Huge and The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, in which increasingly mystical and lengthy songs were accompanied by their multi instrumental talents. Songs of 14 minutes and more with many different sections were not uncommon. This was high art..................or something.

FB concedes that even in their heyday they were an acquired taste and sometimes the concept of tuning and intonation are obviously too conventional for their radical approach to their art. They are very much of their psychedelic time. Nowadays they are definitely specialist fare.

Remarkably cricket does not feature heavily in their output. Apart, thinks FB, from one song. If I was a witch's hat contains the momentous line - 'if I was a witch's hat I'd fly away and be a bat'.

Alas the circketer's interest is left hanging. What kind of bat is not specified - it would be unlikely to be a Gray Nicolls Scoop or an SS Jumbo which had yet to come on to the market when the song was produced. It is disappointing that the song is no unspecific, but that is the psychedelic era for you.

On the other hand, perhaps it is not about cricket after all, and another kind of bat is envisaged. If that were the case, it would be a severe disappointment to FB after all these years.

Mr Bowling

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000Z

Don Carter

Fantasy Bob is indebted to the Guardian newspaper for bringing to his attention the death earlier this month of Don Carter - known at one time as Mr Bowling.

FB's worldwide handful of readers are puzzled and are already reaching for their copies of Wisden to check this Carter chap's statistics. Those familiar with go ahead Edinburgh cricket club Carlton may be thinking that FB has misnamed their revered President Dave Carter (who might well validly make a claim for such a title).

But they should put Wisden aside and forget about Carlton's revered President. For this is not bowling in the cricketing sense, that is in the true sense of the word. This is 10 Pin Bowling, an altogether different pastime which is not really bowling but skittles. Don Carter was the greatest skittle player of his era - aka the golden age of bowling - and possibly ever. He was the first athlete (and given the nature of 10 Pin Bowling, FB uses the word advisedly) to gain a $1m commercial contract when he signed up with Ebonite, a manufacturer of bowling balls in 1964. Amazing when you consider that in 1961 Arnold Palmer only earned $6,000 from endorsing Wilson golf clubs.

Carter retired in 1970 and died in Miami last week at the age of 85.

Yabba dabba do

FB remembers 10 Pin Bowling with some affection. It seems the bluest of blue collar US inventions although it is probably developed from imported German pastimes. In the 1960s it took the UK by storm, perhaps inspired by the Flintstones who were regular participants and alleys opening up one after the other. If FB recalls correctly it featured regularly on TV. At its peak there were over 160 bowling alleys in the UK - 2 of those were in FB's native Aberdeen. For a few years in FB's formative period a visit the lanes was a regular outing.

In truth, FB never quite mastered the scoring which involved crosses and carrying over numbers from one box to another. Now he understands scoring is done automatically - a development that most junior cricketers who turn out for FB's all star 4th XI seem to think has already happened in cricket. Blasting the ball down and getting a strike didn't seem a particularly difficult enterprise. However FB's attempt to replicate his even then world famous inswinger, by adopting an over arm approach did not commend itself to the owners of the lanes and his interest in the game waned.

A lack of re-investment and waning interest led to a general deterioration of bowling alleys in the 1970s. But FB understands that new life has been breathed into the sport in the UK. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the number of ten-pin bowling alleys across the UK rose to over two hundred higher than it had ever been. Today, over 100 million bowlers play in over 90 different countries and it is suggested that player numbers are higher than in any other sport other than soccer. There is an active movement to make bowling an Olympic sport, and in 1998 ten-pin bowling was included for the first time at the Commonwealth Games. It remains a huge professional sport in the US.

But in FB's opinion the development of a proper over arm technique still hampers the development of the sport.

Pants

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob has discovered too late that yesterday was the scheduled day for the 11th No Pants Subway Ride. He did not therefore have to face the dilemma of whether to participate.

This event involves celebrants riding on public transport without their lower clothing. When challenged participants are advised to say that in their hurry to get out of the house they forgot to put their pants on and insist that it is a coincidence that there appear to others who are in a similar condition. Yeh, right.

What the point of this exercise is rather escapes FB. It may be enough to understand that it originates in America. On the other hand, FB may be unduly attached to his pants - or vice versa.

It is reported that the event took place in 60 cities in 27 countries. But no Scottish city is on the list, which suggests that Scottish people have proper respect for their pants, perhaps because they have more need of them in the dead of winter. They are not lightly to be discarded.

The reports do not specify the extent to which cricketers in these 60 cities may have participated.

London maybe
but these are not cricketers

FB suspects there may have been none for most of the cities are not renowned for their cricketing heritage. FB further reflected that cricketers do not wear pants, they wear trousers. A cricketer's pants are something altogether more intimate and FB does not think these could be discarded on Lothian Buses under any circumstances - even on the Night Bus after midnight on a Saturday.

He therefore concludes that until a cricketers' version is devised, he will have to dismiss any concept of participating in the No Pants ride.

In fact he thinks the whole thing is pants anyway.

January

2012-01-09T08:00:00.000Z

January - sick and tired you've been hangin' on me

You make me sad with your eyes

Telling me lies

Don't go don't go.

Edinburgh's own Pilot

Fantasy Bob concedes that this may not be poetry of the highest quality but it is the lyric to one of the best pop songs to come out of Scotland. It was recorded by Pilot, written by group member David Paton and produced by Alan Parsons. It spent three weeks at No 1 in February 1975. Here is a link to Pilot performing the song. Test Match Quality.

One person who was definitely sick and tired in January 1975 was another Scottish export. Mike Denness, was captain of the MCC tour to Australia and New Zealand. Always a controversial choice as captain of the tour, after a series of poor performances with the bat, the baying hounds of the press were turning against him. Even by present day media standards, the vituperation was severe. He was not good enough. He should stand down. He was Scottish................

Denness at his best

Going into the Fourth Test at Sydney, England were 2-0 down in the 6 match series. Badly beaten in the first 2 Tests, they had managed to hang on for a draw at Melbourne. While none of the batsmen had made much headway against the hostility and pace of Lillee and Thomson, Denness' weakness against extreme speed had been cruelly exposed in a string of low scores. In six innings he had amassed only 65. But this was a must win match.

Denness looked hard in the mirror and stepped down. There was no selection committee, no coaching staff to offer views; he took the decision himself. He dropped himself. There were mixed feelings as to whether he was right to sacrifice himself in this way, some, eg Tony Grieg seeing it as a courageous stand, others, Keith Fletcher, as a sign of weakness. It was Fletcher who stood in to bolster the batting. Veteran batsman John Edrich took over the captaincy. It was Edrich's only appearance as captain in his 77 Test career. Regretably it was not a happy experience for him.

Australia scored 405 in the first innings, with Geoff Arnold getting 5 for 86, and Greg Chappell top scoring with 84. Opener Rick McCosker made 80 on debut. England scrambled to 295, with Edrich batting at 5 scoring 50 - off 177 balls. The innings was made respectable by Alan Knott's 82. Thomson had 4 for 74. A 200 plus partnership between Ian Redpath (105 ) and Greg Chappell (144) meant that Australia declared at 289 for 4. England needed 400 to win and were all out for 228 in their second innings to lose by 171. Bye Bye Ashes. In the second innings Edrich was hit in the ribs by his first ball, from Lillee and retired hurt. Although it was confirmed that he had broken ribs he returned and finished 33* (off 163 balls) in another characteristically back to the wall performance.

Edrich
being helped off
with broken ribs

Edrich's injury meant that Denness had to return for the next test. He top scored with 51 as England slid to another defeat. In the final Test, Denness showed something of his true worth by scoring 188 - but Thomson was not playing and Lillee's contribution was restricted by injury. He also batted big in the subsequent games againt New Zealand with an innings of 181.

Denness' statistics confirm the fragility against pace - in matches against West Indies and a full-strength Australia he scored 372 runs at 19.58 with two fifties; against all other opposition he made 1295 runs at 56.30.

While Pilot's life did not extend much beyond 1975 all its members made significant other contributions to music of the period and later, and can be heard behind Kate Bush and as part of the Alan Parsons Project.

And a Scottish person captaining England? - As their other big hit would have it - oh, oh, oh it's magic......

Avalanche

2012-01-08T10:52:00.001Z

Fantasy Bob and the Indian team in Australia have a lot in common. Their start to the year has been almost identical.

While the Indians faced an avalanche of runs and a blizzard of wickets in Sydney, FB and his son and heir faced avalanche conditions and blizzards of the snowy kind in the Arlberg in Austria. Doughty groundsmen were measuring the snow in metres. Play on the pistes was suspended as ground staff failed to get the covers on in time.

Conditions interrupted FB's expected return itinerary. His phoned request to Her Majesty's Royal Air Force to scramble a helicopter in order to evacuate him and said son and heir proved unsuccessful for no valid reason that FB can establish. He will shortly pursue this affair with the proper authorities. Evidence is being collected on the links between this lack of response and Tendulkar's failure to get his 100th ton. A full scale public inquiry may be necessary.

However there will be a short delay in resuming normal service on this blog. FB expects readers will experience no disappointment, in fact they may well relieved. They may take the view that stuck in a snow drift is the best place for FB - Indian cricket supporters may feel the same about their batting line up.

What would the Little Master make of a wicket like this?

Testing Times

2012-01-07T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob returns today from the Austrian ski slopes where he sought escape from the awfulness of BBC's Scotland's New Year's TV schedule. It is an expensive way to avoid the joke free expanse of Only an Excuse, but FB reckons it is worth it for the inner peace.

He is therefore wholly unaware of how the Test matches between Australia and India and S Africa and Sri Lanka are going. Complete ignorance is of course the condition which informs FB's commentaries on most things.

Pattinson
on the Man of the Match trail

These matches might well be over as neither of the preceding matches lasted beyond the fourth day.

FB was more surprised than many that India's batting line up proved so brittle against Hilfenhaus and Pattison but that match was lost when India let the Australian tail wag - something it has done with vigour many times in the past. Well done to young Pattison who now has 2 man of the match awards in his 3 Test career. Ponting also looked less scratchy than for some time and there were good runs for Hussey and Cowans.

Kallis out for 0

Sri Lanka picked themselves up from a run of poor results with a convincing win over S Africa for whom Jacques Kallis had his first ever pair. S Africa couldn't capitalise on the efforts of debutante fast bowler Marchant de Lange who in the year of 5-fers on debut got 7 for 81 in the first innings. Sri Lanka's fight back was to a great extent founded on Sangakkara's 108, a return to his best following a run of low scores including a first innings 0. Also significant performances from Chandimal who had 2 half centuries in his first test.

But you knew all this a week and more ago.

The next games are well set up - 2012 could be a vintage cricket year already. Test matches - how can we do without them?

Why a duck?

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000Z

Readers can come out of hiding - Fantasy Bob has finished his cricketers' Twelve Days of Christmas and normal disservice is about to be resumed.

Except that he wishes to note that the full set of gifts sent his way by Ms True Love would, in today's money, cost around £65,000. That would buy a lot of biscuits.

FB was also reflecting that although Ms True Love seems poultry and bird obsessed, she does not light upon the bird most commonly associated with cricket. Perhaps this reflects her great sensitivity for no cricketer likes to be reminded of failure and embarrassment. A gift of a duck would be to rub salt in the wound.

But there are some cricketers who are even more familiar with the duck than FB. In 185 Test innings, Courtney Walsh made 43 ducks. In 138 innings, Glen McGrath failed to trouble the scorers 35 times. When you add other international cricket the record is held by Muttiah Muralitharan who had 59 ducks in all forms of international cricket - 33 in Tests, 25 in ODIs and one in a T20 international. Courtney Walsh, the had 11 ODI ducks so his overall total is 54.

There is only one other player with 50 international ducks but he appeared at the opposite end of the batting order. Sanath Jayasuriya had 15 in Tests, 34 in ODIs and 4 in T20s.

But the overall duck master in first class cricket is Reg Perks of Worcestershire and England who made 156 ducks in 884 visits to the crease between 1930 and 1955. Perks was a classic tailender - his highest score of 75 was completed in less than 30 minutes and 3 times he hit 3 consecutive sixes. He was the first professional captain of Worcestershire.

Why a duck? The suggestion is that the shape of the number 0 is similar to that of a duck's egg - but it is similar to any other egg so this is hardly definitive. A newspaper report of 17 July 1866 on a cricket match in which the Prince of Wales's (the future Edward VII) scored nought says that the Prince 'retired to the royal pavilion on a duck's egg'.

But if this answers the question why an egg, it still doesn't answer the question why a duck? And this great sequence from the Marx Brothers doesn't really help.

The Twelfth Day of Christmas

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000Z

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me twelve drummers drumming.

Another mishearing by a clotheared scribe. The real gift is 12 Drummos Drummo-ing.

Fantasy Bob wishes Gordon Drummond and the Scottish cricket team the very best of cricket in 2012. Scotland have a series of fixtures against UAE in February as part of the Intercontinental Cup and the 50 Over League. Then in March they take part in the qualifying competition for the ICC T20 competition in Sri Lanka in August. In Scotland's group are Ireland and Kenya. Later in the year, the highlight will be the ODI against England in June.

FB also wishes Drummo another successful season, with many more to follow, at Carlton.

The Eleventh Day of Christmas

2012-01-04T16:16:00.000Z

On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me eleven pipers piping.

Readers might think as a Scottish person,that there could be nothing more pleasing to Fantasy Bob than the sound of eleven pipers piping and that he would respond enthusiastically to his true love's latest gift. But FB has to confess of all the presents sent by true love this is the one that he most hopes would be accompanied by the receipt so he could exchange it.

Long experience has taught him that the optimum distance between him and a bagpiper is 200 yards. They are fine when parading about on the field at Murrayfield when FB is safely coccooned at the back of the stand. Any closer and FB shows signs of distress. His ears bleed, his skin turns white. For the bagpipe is truly the least musical instrument ever to proclaim itself as a musical instrument. Had the Trades Description Act existed when it was invented it would never have got away with it. No Scottish baby was ever lulled to sleep by a sweet bagpipe lullaby and there is a reason that sonatas for bagpipe do not feature in the oeuvre of Beethoven or Mozart.

Pipers steak,
mushroom and thyme pie

FB recognises that these are heretical thoughts and he betrays his heritage. He accepts he may have to leave Scotland and seek asylum somewhere bagpipe free.

Instead of all that caterwauling, FB hopes that his True Love's gift is inspired by the piping hot Pipers Pies that have been recently available at Lords - although whether he can manage 11 is another matter. But he is willing to try.

Lords a-Leaping

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000Z

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me ten lords a-leaping.

Fantasy Bob has no idea why lords should leap or why they are identified at this part of the song. It could as well be frogs a-leaping, or jaffa cakes - anything. But whatever they are they are supposed to represent the Ten Commandments which were an early version of the Laws of Cricket.

Moses telling
the juniors a thing or to

The match report at Exodus 20 describes how the laws were revealed to Moses. But it tells only part of the story. It is accepted that those Ten Commandments that feature in this report are only a selection. There are various other commandments, bye-commandments and sub-commandments including an early version of the LBW law, which feature in other scripts. But FB has discovered an additional set of Commandments which Moses used for the guidance of juniors playing in his team. FB has translated them from the ancient Aramaic and brought them up to date.

Thou shalt have no other gods before cricket not even X-Box.
Thou shalt not make any graven image particularly of any preening overpaid over-tattooed footballer who is likely to wear gloves even in September for that is the kind of jessies they are. Graven images of Dravid Sehwag or KP are probably OK.
Thou shalt not take the name of Fantasy Bob, or any other player who needs a rest on the way when chasing the ball to the boundary, in vain.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it free for friendlies and remember to bring tea for three or the wrath of FB will be upon you
Honour thy father and thy mother for they are younger than Fantasy Bob ever was and you don't want them to turn out anything like him.
Thou shalt not call Fantasy Bob for a quick single - ever.
Thou shalt not steal the last Mr Kipling almond slice unless you have ascertained that Fantasy Bob has declined it in favour of something else on the tea table, most probably, knowing him, an Empire Biscuit.
Thou shalt not commit adultery - adults are what you are going to turn into so the longer you can put if off the better.
Thous shalt not bear false witness against whether you nicked that one behind relying on the fact that the aging umpire is half blind and three quarters deaf - thou shalt walk.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's bat particularly if it is a Gray Nicolls Scoop because FB will be coveting that first.

Dancing Ladies

2012-01-02T08:00:00.000Z

On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me nine ladies dancing.

5 of the 9 ladies dancing

For cricketers of Fantasy Bob's vintage, any mention of ladies dancing can only bring to mind Pan's People, the dance troupe who brightened up BBC's Top of the Pops from 1968 to 1976. Over that period, there were in all 9 members of the group in addition to the choreographer Flick Colby, although at any one time the group was only 5 or 6.

In the days before music videos, Pan's People became an institution and, in the days before the raunch of Madonna, Rihanna and Lady Gaga, were all a young cricketer had to distract him from the pages of Wisden. Impure thoughts in those days were so much purer.

Perhaps the best remembered of the group is Babs Lord who married actor Robert Powell. Her subsequent career is impressive - as a yachtswoman and world explorer she has made several trips to the Himalayas, the Sahara, both Poles and the jungle in Guyana. She holds the remarkable record of being the oldest housewife to visit both the North and South Poles.

Sadly, the founder and choreographer of Pans People, Flick Colby, died in May 2011 following a battle with cancer.

And now at no extra cost, FB invites his world wide readership to enjoy Pans People as they were in 1971 doing their stuff to 3 Dog Night's Joy to the World. Joy to the world indeed.

The Eighth Day of Christmas

2012-01-01T08:00:00.000Z

On the eighth day of Christmas my true love gave to me eight maids a-milking.

For the cricketer, eight maids a-milking can only be a nostalgic reference to the 8 ball over. Although the 6 ball over has been standard since 1978-79, becoming enshrined in the Laws in 2000, at various times and in various places overs comprised different numbers of balls. From 1936-37 until 1978-79 the 8 ball over was used in Australia,as it was between 1938-39 and 1957-58 in S Africa. N Zealand used the 8 ball over between 1968-69 and 1978-79. But at earlier period in the game's history the 4, then the 5, ball over was standard and the first Test matches were based on the 4 ball over. In 1939 the 8 ball over was introduced in English First Class cricket on an experimental basis, but the War intervened and the experiment was abandoned.

There are occasionally suggestions that the reintroduction of the 8 ball over would speed play up and overcome the persistent problem of slow over rates. But the fast bowlers' union responds that this would be against their interests, particularly in some of the hot and humid environments that cricket is played. Advertisers also would be unlikely to welcome fewer between over breaks. So it is likely that the 6 ball over will remain. Unless of course the ICC thinks that something different should prevail because it has been used in T20 cricket.

Although his world wide readers will know that Fantasy Bob is a traditionalist in most things, he thinks that 8 ball overs should be used in evening matches to reduce the time lost through changing ends.

But in lower league cricket the 6 ball over can be the exception or at best a rough average. Many umpires have an uncertain grasp on the number of balls bowled in the over, having been distracted by any number of factors - some of them actually on the field of play. Signalling a four can plant the idea of four even after the first ball of the over. Some of course simply can't count and have no knowledge of numbers after 1,2......er 3. Some judge the end of the over by the boredom factor. Had enough? Must be the over. Then there are the wides and no balls - and in lower league cricket these can be a constant feature and it is a strain on the already stressed umpire to remember not to count them - or to allow only one additional ball. It would unduly strain these individuals to introduce 8 ball overs.

It is one of the many anxieties of a lower league umpire that he may have to stretch his arithmetical prowess far beyond its natural limits. He may feel complacently comfortable at counting to 6, but he knows that at any time and without warning an attempt may be made on the record set by Courtney Walsh, who in the final test between Australia and West Indies in Perth in the 1996-97 series bowled a 15 ball over containing 9 no-balls. But Mohammad Sami of Pakistan topped that when he bowled an over of 17 balls in an ODI against Bangaldesh in 2004. Sami bowled 7 wides and 4 no-balls. But humanity can intervene in the lower leagues. When it is a junior spraying it to all parts of the compass, an umpire might think that after 3 or 4 wides the youngster deserves some mercy and may call over - the batting side will rarely demur, they know the light is fading. FB regrets that this humanity does not extend to players of his seniority. Were FB to get in the Walsh or Sami situation the umpire would not only have to the challenge of heroic arithmetical gymnastics but should also be ensuring that emergency resuscitation equipment is being made available on the boundary. If medical equipment is not to hand, a large supply of biscuits might have to do.

In lower league cricket 8 maidens, whether a-milking or not, is a lot but a mere bagatelle in Test cricket. The record is 49, sent down by Alf Valentine of West Indies had 49 overs during his 92 overs in the second innings against England at Trent Bridge in 1950. During the Lord's Test on that same 1950 tour, Valentine bowled 75 maidens in the match (another record), while his spin partner Sonny Ramadhin delivered 70. The most successive maiden overs in a Test is 21, by the Indian slow left-armer Bapu Nadkarni, in the first Test against England in Madras in 1963-64. Nadkarni bowled 131 successive dot-balls in that spell, but that didn't break the Test record, which remains 137, by the South African offspinner Hugh Tayfield against England in Durban in 1956-57. Those were eight-ball overs, though, so Tayfield managed "only" 16 maidens in that spell, which spanned both innings. 16 maids a-milking. Quite a gift.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob interrupts his interpretation of the 12 Days of Christmas to send his world wide readership every best wishes for 2012.

Happy New Year.............
.......................Happy New Year.................
...............................................................Happy New Year.

There, he has said it to each of you.

The cricketers' 12 Days of Christmas will resume later today.

Here is some New Year Music (not U2).

Seven Swans

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000Z

On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me seven swans a-swimming.

It is unclear how true love got hold of one swan, let alone seven. For in the UK swans are protected and it is illegal to kill them (or wrap them in gift paper for the purposes of making presents of them). The Queen owns all the swans in Great Britain, except for those in the Orkney Islands where the swans belong to the people. So unless this is an Orcadian romance, there may be some explaining to do.

But swans crop up everywhere as symbols of just about everything. Richard Wagner is swan rich territory - Parsifal shoots a swan leading to 5 hours of full volume Wagnerian singing and Lohengrin sails up river on a swan to present himself to his true love. Swan Lake is awash with dancing cygnets, and even glam rockers like Marc Bolan Rode a white swan like the people of the Beltane, Wear your hair long, babe, you can`t go wrong. Da, da, dee, dee, da...............

But what relevance is all that to the cricketer? At this point, Fantasy Bob's world wide audience will be thinking, 'For Goodness sake, when is he going to mention Graeme Swann, England's deeply symbolic off spinner?'

There once was an ugly duckling

FB remembers Danny Kaye's song about Graeme Swann. For he once was an ugly duckling with feathers so stubby and brown, and all the selectors in 2000 in so many words said Quack, you get up our noses, get out of the England set up......................all through the years of 2000 to 2008 he bowled away for Notts, until he got to Chennai and KP said 'Next over, Swanny,' and he bowled, and he took 2 wickets in his first over, and they said 'See you are a Test bowler - and a very fine one indeed.' Who's an ugly duckling? Not Graeme Swann - 36 Tests, 153 wickets at 28.82.

But here are six other first rank players who looked like ugly ducklings on their introduction to international cricket but went on to become very fine swans indeed.

Graeme Gooch - On his Test debut against Australia at Edgbaston in 1975, Gooch got a pair, caught behind in both innings. 3 years later he returned, not such an ugly duckling, and he remains England's leading run scorer in Tests with 8900 runs in 118 Tests at 42.58.

Shane Warne - in the second innings of his 3rd Test, against Sri Lanka in Colombo in 1992, Warne had a Test career bowling average of 335. Sri Lanka closed in on a probable victory but Warne then chose his moment to be come a very fine swan indeed as he took three wickets for no run in 11 deliveries. He finished with 708 Test wickets at 25.41.

Len Hutton's first Test was at Lords in 1937 against New Zealand at the age of 20. He made made 0 and 1. An ugly duckling - but only temporarily. In the next Test at Old Trafford, now a mature 21, he scored his first century and and the following year made 364 against Australia - 79 Tests, 6971 runs at 56.67.

Michael Holding took 0 for 127 in his debut Test, in Australia in 1975-76. He finished that series on the losing side against a dominant Australian side with just 10 wickets at 61.40. A few months later, with his feathers grown in, he took 14 wickets on a slow pitch at The Oval to demolish England. In 60 Tests he took 249 wickets at 23.68. A very fine swan indeed.

Marvin Atapattu looked the ugliest of ducklings - his first 6 Test scores were 0 and 0, 0 and 1, and 0 and 0 (and even that one run was probably a leg-bye). In 1997 he got another chance and finally made it into double figures. No longer an ugly duckling, he finished a 90 Test career with 5502 runs at 39.02 and 16 centuries, 6 of them doubles.

Saeed Anwar got a pair on his Test debut against West Indies in Faisalabad in November 1990. He didn't win another Test cap for more than three years - but he was no longer an ugly duckling and made 169 against New Zealand in his third match. Anwar ended up with 4052 runs in 55 Tests at 45.52.

Geese

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000Z

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six geese a-laying......

Six geese a-laying are said to represent the six days of the Creation, in which the Doughty Groundsman separated the dark from the light, the firmament from the earth and the ground from the water; in which he brought forth vegetation and animals and ( in what, with the benefit of hindsight, may have been a bit of a strategic error) created man (as in men and women) in his own image and set him with dominion over all other creatures. On the seventh day the match report suggests that the Doughty Groundsman rested.

Or did he? The match report goes on from that point to tell a likely story of the Garden of Eden (now known to have been located very near Aberdeen) and a serpent and a woman and an apple. After that things appear to have taken a turn for the worse, other than the invention of Eve's Pudding.

What was the Doughty Groundsman doing while that tawdry little drama was going on? There is surely a missing chapter in the scorebook. Fantasy Bob has been searching deep in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient match reports and believes he has found the missing text.

And on the seventh day the Doughty Groundsman thought he deserved a rest and had just put his feet up unto himself when the club skipper called unto him on his mobile and saith. 'We have arranged a friendly against a touring side. Can you create a wicket.'

And the doughty groundsman muttereth under his breath and saith unto anyone who would listen which is noone 'Now you tell me - after I had set you up with that Eve bird I thought you might have something else to do today.'

And he hast heaved himself into the seat of the heavy roller and hast pressed the starter button unto himself.

For forty days and forty nights he rolleth the square and he saw that it was good. He separateth the thatch and moweth the grass to leave a short covering on the perfect surface. It addeth pace and bounce. He hast repaired the footholds. He hast marked the creases and sayeth unto the juniors 'Keep thy b***** feet off the square'. And they were sore afraid.

For the Doughty Groundsman laboureth through the morning as the light separateth from the darkness and his tea flask emptieth unto his chipped enamel mug. Even unto the last.

And lo his work is accomplished. And he texteth unto the club skipper that it is good. And the club skipper raiseth up a great cry of praise unto the Doughty Groundsman.

And lo the cricketers of the earth assembleth before the Pavilion and make unto themselves a joyful noise on their i-Pods.

And the stumps are setteth in the ground. But the clouds darken the sky and unto them the rain doth fall. It scuddeth down from the firmament and the Doughty Groundsman thinketh unto himself 'Sod this for game of soldiers.'

Thus spake the Doughty Groundsman for he doth scarify in the name of the Lord.

And so beginneth the book of Lamentations.

Five Gold Rings

2011-12-29T08:00:00.000Z

On the fifth day of Christmas...............well everyone knows this one.

Five gold rings.

In 2012 all thoughts of rings will stray to the Olympic rings as the hour of the London Olympiad approaches. Except for Mrs FB whose jewellery based understanding of the term will remain firm.

Long suffering members of Fantasy Bob's world wide readership may bring to mind that he has previously expressed disappointment at aspects of the Olympiad and in particular the absence of cricket from the so-called Festival of so-called Sport. Nevertheless FB is proud beyond words to live in a country where, notwithstanding that the economy is is dire straits and libraries and sports centres are closing daily, the Government can find an extra £40m to spend on the opening and closing ceremonies.

Impression of archery at Lords -
KEEP OFF THE SQUARE

So the Olympic rings are of little interest to cricketers and the insult is compounded by the fact that the temple of Lords will be given over to the Olympic archery competition during July and August. Apart from the 1900 Olympics in Paris, the subject of the link to FB's previous Wittering above, cricket has featured in only 2 multi-sport events - the Commonwealth Games in 1998 in Kuala Lumpur (in which S Africa beat Adam Gilchrist's Australia in the final) and the Asian Games in 2010 (won by Bangladesh).

A bid to get a T20 competition in the 2012 Olympics failed - and a similar attempt to get the sport into the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow was also unsuccessful. Lamentable. But some progress has been made in that the IOC now recognise cricket as a sport (FB doesn't understand what they previously considered it to be) and further attempts are being made to get a competition a T20 competition in the 2020 Olympics. If that doesn't appeal even to the dumbest marketing man then FB may have to give up biscuits.

However cricket authorities have an ambivalent attitude towards the prospect - the international calendar is already choc-a-bloc and it would be hard to fit another event into the schedules. England did not send a team to the Commonwealth Games in 1998, and India did not send a team to the 2010 Asian Games. Both are unlikely to support any Olympic bid now. But, says FB, surely an Olympic competition would be more important and valuable than another tawdry Champion's League.

Guanggong Cricket Stadium

The wider development of the game would surely benefit from the exposure - just as other sports have - and the development of new facilities would take place.

As a result of the Asian Games there is now a high quality facility in China, the Guanggong International Cricket Stadium in Guangzhou, which may stage Pakistan fixtures in the near future. The stadium should also assist the Hong Kong Cricket Association in its development to ODI status. The cities bidding for the 2020 Olympics are Doha, Baku, Istanbul, Madrid, Rome and Tokyo, and the winner will be announced in September 2013. Doha already can offer cricket facilities, but it would be a fine thing to see serious cricket played in any of the other locations.

Perhaps an Olympic competition should feature age grade teams, as in soccer, and major nations could plug this into their development pathways - but FB fears that cricketers can expect little by way of leadership can be expected from the ICC.

Then cricketers could look to the Five Gold Rings with interest - and their cricketing true love could offer the alternative of a cricketing gold medal.

The Fourth Day

2011-12-28T08:00:00.000Z

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me four calling birds.

Except nobody really knows what a calling bird is. Cleverclogs suggest that originally the reference was to the colley bird, which is what blackbirds were called in the middle ages. Maybe, maybe, thinks Fantasy Bob. But more likely, in his view, is it a complete mishearing by a cloth-eared minstrel with no knowledge of cricket.

For the cricketer would hear correctly the tribute to the type of player every team needs, a contributor with bat, ball in the field and to team spirit and moral.

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me Four Collingwoods.

Well worth having. England's top ODI scorer and the skipper who took them to victory in the 2010 T20 World Championships. Paul Collingwood announced his retirement from Test cricket almost a year ago.

206
v Australia
December 2006
Adelaide

6 for 31
v Bangladesh
June 2005
Trent Bridge

120* v Australia
Feb 2007
Melbourne

The catch of the century -
Perth
December 2010
Ponting c Collingwood b Anderson 12

French Hens

2011-12-27T08:00:00.000Z

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me 3 French Hens.

And what use would a cricketer make of 3 French Hens? They can neither bat nor bowl and are pretty scratchy in the field. At least they are not 3 French ducks. In Fantasy Bob's experience there are too many ducks in cricket already.

One interpretation says the hens symbolise the three virtues - Faith Hope and Charity. This does not really explain to the cricketer why hens of a non cricket playing nation are chosen as symbols. It would have been far better to have nominated a cricket playing nation - although it would be absurd to choose Australia to represent virtue and that would narrow the choice down. After reflection, FB thinks the best bet might be Sri Lankan hens, except it doesn't fit the tune. Tricky stuff this, isn't it.

Nevertheless, all these virtues are essential features of FB's approach to cricket and are always at the front of his mind during selection meetings.

Faith - blind faith that his bowling action looks anything but ridiculously arthritic and about as athletic as a Greggs Steakbake;
Hope - verging on desperation - that he might get off the mark;
Charity - FB's presence on the field can generally be considered a very generous donation to the opposition.

3 Sri Lankan Hens.

Turtle Doves

2011-12-26T08:00:00.000Z

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me two turtle doves.

The European Turtle Dove rarely appears in Northern Europe before the end of April, returning south again in September so it is present for the cricket season. Sadly, according to the State of Europe's Common Birds 2007 report, the European Turtle Dove population in Europe has fallen by 62% in recent times.

Turtle Doves are emblems of devoted love. There are a number of cultural references - two turtle doves are mentioned as having been sacrificed for the Birth of Jesus. In Renaissance Europe, the Turtle Dove was envisaged as the devoted partner of the Phoenix and inspired a number of works including Shakespeare's poem "The Phoenix and the Turtle". The Turtle Dove is featured in a number of folk songs about love and loss. But, come on FB, enough of this rich cultural reference. What significance is the turtle dove to the cricketer?

Turtle Doves is Cockney Rhyming slang for gloves. For many years FB thought that cricket gloves only came in singles - such was the number of random gloves to be found in the team cricket bag. They had obviously been bought one at a time. One left one, one right one and one with a ............. He has more recently come to realise that they are made and sold in pairs. Much more sensible.

WG models early gloves

In the modern cricket match there are 6 gloves legally in view at any one time - worn by each batsman and the wicket keeper. (Since many of these will also be wearing inners, there may be 12 gloves on the field). Gloves on other players are illegal and a begloved fielder touching the ball would incur a penalty of 5 runs against his side. But batsmen and wicketkeepers have not always worn gloves. The protection would have been made necessary when bowling become over arm and the prospect of bounce at pace threatened the batsman's finger bones. Even now occasionally in lower league cricket there is the lower order batsman who will eschew the gloves offered implying that merely to touch them would be an insult to his manhood. Such is the damage testosterone can do to fragile brain cells.

Like all sports equipment cricket gloves have gone through evolution or intelligent design if that is you are reading in certain US States. The first photographs of gloved cricketers show various arrays of padding attached to fingers and hands. But the first gloves FB was aware of were poor cotton things with strips of rubber spikes attached to each finger. FB scarcely believes that even the top players wore such gloves. So minimal was the protection these offered against even schoolboy pace was minimal, it is hard to believe facing Larwood and the likes with only flimsy rubber spikes against him and broken fingers.

Right hand batting glove believed to have been worn by Jack Hobbs whilst making his 197th century (and last first class century) for Surrey v Lancashire at Old Trafford in May 1934. The green spiked and cloth glove is marked '197th Century 28/5/34' and is signed by Jack Hobbs. The glove also made by Jack Hobbs Ltd. The glove is sold with a letter from R.H. Hobbs stating that Hobbs on completing his innings (and 197th century) threw the glove to A.C. Hobbs, a member of Lancashire County Cricket Club. Recently auctioned.

The spiked glove fell out of fashion in the 1950s although it still dominated the school equipment when FB started the game. Nowadays all manner of foam padding is used and no glove can respectably be sold without an array of features including:

Nylon gusset for ventilation
Ergonomic finger and thumb splits
Sponge-padded polyurethane back for better fit and comfort
Extra finger protection reinforced with a thermoplastic polyurethane insert in the first two fingers of the bottom hand
Lightweight and rounded high-density foam finger rolls
Split thumb and three-piece sidebars on lead hand
Leather tabs on fingertips
Extra PITTARDS® leather patch on hard-wearing areas of the palm
Mesh thumb for better ventilation
Polyurethane embossed knuckles
Toweled wristband with embossed Velcro® fastener

FB is tempted to present this to a poetry magazine as found poetry - it describes the SG Hilite as worn by Rahul Dravid - so they must be some use.

Even with all these features there is nothing sorer than the thumb being squeezed against the bat handle, and broken fingers seem no less common than previously. Some players seem to have a greater propensity for this than others - Nasser Hussain seemed to FB always to have a broken finger. And notable breaks of 2011 included Ricky Ponting (although broken in 2010 and while fielding gloveless), Eoin Morgan and Dilshan.

Grieg -
special helmet
not so special gloves

But technology frequently takes two steps forward and one step back. Mercifully, some glove developments did not last. There are many things that can be said for and against Tony Grieg. He was in many ways a courageous pioneer. But he had no concept of propriety when it came to batting gloves. Crowds would recoil when he stepped to the crease in the 1970s wearing mitt like things with no individual features. This attempt to revolutionise gloves thankfully ended in failure - not even Kerry Packer could tolerate them. Why would any player wear anything that made them look like a puppet from Camberwick Green?

The first day of Christmas

2011-12-24T08:00:00.001Z

The 12 Days of Christmas – every cricketer can remember the words to up to 5 GOLD RINGS, and then it all becomes a bit uncertain – twelve, somethings or others, eleven what you call thems, ten – now I know this one, nine what’s it’s, eight eh I wrote this one down somewhere, seven thingumyjigs, six you know whats...... FIVE GOLD RINGS…….

What does it all mean? There is a suggestion that the words were created to help Catholic worshippers in the 17^th century remember and express essential parts of their faith during a period in Britain when the Catholic faith was severely repressed . So the partridge in the pear tree is Jesus, the two turtle doves the Old and New Testaments and so on all the way up to the 12 points of faith of the apostles. This interpretation, while charming does, not reveal exactly why those points of faith are depicted as drummers drumming. So FB pays more attention to the argument that this is all made up.

But the song cannot mean nothing – that would imply it had been written for the X-Factor and FB is pretty sure that it predates Simon Cowell. So FB plunged into research and has identified that the song is in fact a celebration of cricket in its finest glory. FB will present the results of his researches over the next 12 days when FB returns from the ski slopes. Those of his world wide trio of readers who expect to be severely bored by the whole business can look away now.

Percy Chapman -
perhaps he was the Partridge

THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS IS CHRISTMAS DAY ITSELF.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree.............

This honours Norman Ernest Partridge who was born in Birmingham, in 1900 and died at Aberystwyth in1982. He played for Cambridge University and Warwickshire. But he features in this lyric because he was identified by Wisden as as one its five Cricketers of the Year while still a schoolboy. He was selected in 1919 while still at Malvern College.

While the First Class game had been suspended during the First World War, Wisden named no Cricketers of the Year in 1916 or 1917. In 1918 it named 5 school bowlers of the year, and in 1919 it honoured 5 Public School Players of the Year including Partridge. Ah that old English class system...................

Partridge played one season with Worcestershire but was with Warwickshire from 1921 to 1937. In his first class career he scored over 2700 runs and took 393 wickets at medium pace with, by all accounts, a highly suspect action.

The most successful of the cricketers honoured with Partridge was Percy Chapman who went on to play 26 Tests for England, skippering one. Chapman had played 6 Tests before he played county cricket.

So FB what about the Pear Tree? FB reckons that the Pear Tree is a reference to Wisden itself - the pale yellow colour of the book being similar to certain varieties of pear. But that is only conjecture. One of the other cricketers of 1919 was Lionel Hedges who had a limited cricket career after Oxford and died at the age of 33. So the original version of the lyric would have gone

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a Chapman in a Hedge

which just doesn't do the trick. Compromises had to be made and the result is the well known form. obviously nonsense......and little use to oppressed Catholics. So Partridge in a pear tree it has been and always will be.

Recycling

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000Z

Recycling is for Fantasy Bob. As his world wide readership will have noticed, all the jokes he uses are recycled - frequently many times.

In Fantasy Bob's office where allegations are made that he works, the custom at Christmas is for a Freecycling Santa. This is a variant on the Secret Santa where presents are bought for colleagues but the giver's identity is withheld. There is usually much hilarity as these are opened and flimsy underwear and risque dvds are received by the strait-laced and decrepit.

But Freecycle Santa involves the donation of something no longer wanted but which may none the less still be useful to someone. It too is wholly anonymous but on a lucky dip basis. This year FB managed to grasp out of the bran tub the greatest hits of Eric Clapton which is good because a starter guitarist like Clapton has much to learn from FB's mastery of the instrument.

But recycling is all the thing - we have made free with the earth's resources for too long. There are all manner of targets which have led to all manner of rubbish bins in FB's house and an endless agonising over which coloured bin has to be put out on a particular day. Is it the red bin tomorrow? He will ask innocently. 'Yes................no............er maybe.......' It reminds FB of batting with an imaginative partner who sees singles where no other player would. Generally the call should be, 'Wait until we see what the neighbours all do'. Sound advice when considering any quick single.

But recycling is the thing. So FB is going to approach the new cricket season with a new greener vision. His cricket must be sustainable and recycling has a central role to play. Rather than reduce the earth's limited resources further by fashioning new runs in every innings (as if), he therefore intends to make use of the runs he scored last season.

He makes a start with this blog posting. He presents for recycling a Christmas Wittering he posted last year. It quite amused him last year - he hopes it does the same for any readers this year.

And with that splendid gesture Fantasy Bob wishes comfort and joy to his world wide readership.

Levis

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob now joins Brian Lara in the 500 club. Lara scored the world record 501* for Warwickshire against Durham in June 1994. Lara is the only member of the 500 club since this is the only First Class innings of 500. This is Fantasy Bob's 500th Wittering. This is not a world record.

Among its many enduring qualities Lara's world record stands as a continuing subliminal endorsement of Levi Strauss's 501 jeans, the definitive blue jean and a product FB would also willingly have endorsed had he been asked. He has worn 501s for many years.

Levi work pants (as the Americans would describe them originally) were first made in 1870 when the rivetting of the pockets and other stress points was patented. The original design also had a rivet at the bottom of the fly but this was abandoned, so the story goes, when a company director stood too near a fire and the rivet's heat conducting properties made his eyes water. The 501s first came on the market in the 1890s and in the 70's and 80's went on to become the world's best selling item of clothing.

An original feature of the jeans is that they are shrink to fit - you are meant to buy them big and they reduce to your slim hip dimensions when they wash. Early advertisements suggested that you should go into the bath with them on to make sure that they shrunk to your shape. FB was devoted but he never went that far. Since the 1980s Levis have been noted for a series of iconic advertisements featuring significant songs eg I heard it Thru the Grapevine, Stand By Me and so on. But their promotion wasn't always so slick. FB recalls a radio ad from Radio Luxemburg many years ago in which a vocal challenge is made to the sheriff - 'Come on Earp, will ya go for yer guns'. 'Nope'. After several repetitions, Earp is asked why he won't go for his guns 'Cos I ain't got my Levis on,' came the answer and sales rocketed.

Levis have never made cricket equipment of clothing, more's the pity. But FB remembers turning out for his Oxford College in a pair of white levi jeans when funds were too limited to invest in replacement cricket trousers. FB in white jeans - now there's an image that you don't want to think too hard about.

FB's Cricket Year

2011-12-22T08:00:00.000Z

The media is awash with reviews of the year. Why should Fantasy Bob be any different? Every year is a vintage year for FB so here are his highlights from the 2011 cricketing year.

January 2011 - starts with FB on the ski slopes but the message coming through from Melbourne that the Ashes have been retained. FB's Australian ski instructor is well pleased with the news and assures FB that there was no connection between this and his decision to lead FB on a suicidal charge down the blackest of black runs.

February 2011 - the start of the Cricket World cup - England almost blow it against the Netherlands and then tie with India in a pulsating encounter. More importantly indoor nets resume for FB who discovers stiffness in body areas that he was not previously aware of having.

March 2011 - as the World Cup continues, the last flourishes of Murali and Shoab Ahktar are seen. England are destroyed by Sri Lanka. Speculation continues about whether this is the end of Ponting's career as his box breaks a TV in the dressing room. Following Australia's semi final defeat he retires from the captaincy. FB joins club colleagues in the ritual rolling of the wicket delivering blisters to body areas that he was not previously aware of having.

April 2011 - the World Cup climaxes with India worthy champions and Poonam Pandey's name - if nothing else - is imprinted on cricket fans' minds world wide after her promise to strip off for the Indian team if they win. FB pursues a lonely vigil in pursuit of Ms Pandey - despite repeated references in his Witterings to her charm and accomplishments, she fails to turn up for any Carlton net practices. FB finds that his offer to strip off for her does not bring a change in her stay-away attitude. There is controversy as the ICC exclude associates from the next world cup a decision they are to change later in the year.

May 2011 - a severe lack of rain in Scotland means that the start of the season is unimpeded. Fantasy Bob proves that miracles can happen - after Wittering in praise of a team mate's success in carrying his bat through the innings, he does the same in the subsequent match. Both matches end in glorious defeat.

June 2011 - England and Sri Lanka play 3 test matches - the highlight of which for FB is Sangakkara's first hundred in England - followed closely by his excellent Cowdrey lecture in which he gives insights into the power of cricket in bringing a civil war torn land together. FB injures himself and withdraws from action whereupon his team celebrate with an unexpected but handsome win.

July 2011 - FB in his first appearance returns from injury takes a hat trick. No one notices at the time since it happens across 2 overs. This feat inspires Scotland to a fine ODI win against Ireland - unfortunately the next day Sri Lanka bring them back down to earth with a reminder of the gap in standards between associate and test playing members of cricket's family.

August 2011 - the continuous rain makes life frustrating for Scotland's cricketers, doughty groundsmen begin to fashion arks out of redundant equipment but after a tight series of end of season encounters, Carlton are crowned Scottish champions. There is disaster for FB as his treasured bat splits during a late season net practice. How can it ever be replaced? England wallop India in 4 Tests as India seem not to bother with such concepts as practice and application. Only Dravid seems committed. England show excelence in all departments and therefore deservedly top the Test rankings. In one match that did happen in Scotland FB had to be taken to a place of quiet safety following his team mates' dropping 8 catches off his bowling in one match. Statisticians have yet to confirm if this is a record.

September 2011- Carlton win the Scottish T20 trophy to prove themselves the dominant force in Scottish cricket. With the season over it is award time. To the surprise of absolutely noone, FB misses out on any award although he may have run Jonathan Trott close in the ICC's cricketer of the year award.

October 2011- the nights draw in and the spot fixers go to the Old Bailey. Meaningless cricket matches abound and the crowds stay away even in India as FB's attention turns to the Rugby World Cup. Typically Scotland get so near, yet end up as far from the trophy as they ever are. However Scotland's cricketers have a successful tour of Namibia.

November 2011 - the spot fixers are sent to jail. There are shamefully short test series between S Africa and Australia and Australia in NZ in which a new rule that any fast bowler playing his first test must take a 5-fer is tested. The ICC pronounce it so successful that they will consider abolishing it. There are 2 of the closest and most dramatic tests in recent years as Australia's batting weakness begins to worry all observers.

December 2011 - Virender Sehwag scores 219 to set a new ODI record. Ed Cowan is picked for Australia to boost their batting - this means that when the teams line up for the boxing day test, there will be a former Scotland player on each side since Rahul Dravid also played a season for Scotland. FB is pretty sure that this is the first time this has ever happened. Fantasy Bob discovers that following the restructuring of Scottish cricket leagues, his all star Carlton 4th XI is administratively relegated to a lower division. FB suspects this is a plot to ensure that certain players in certain sides have the chance to feature in FB's world famous match reports. The East of Scotland Cricket Association have had to decline applications from all corners from sides seeking similar opportunities. FB finds a replacement bat which will be in his stocking at Christmas. FB decides not to send Poonam Pandey a Christmas Card.

Pandey - last appearance in FB's blog

The year ends with England preparing to face a resurgent Pakistan in a 3 Test Series in the UAE in January. Perhaps next year will see the return of international cricket to Pakistan. And Australia face India as distinct second favourites.

Cricketers who are no longer available for selection include - Graham Dilley, Fred Titmus, Nawab of Pataudi, Trevor Bailey, Terry Jenner and Basil D'Oliviera. They leave memories and a fine legacy. Some are illustrated above.

FB's cricketer of the year is Rahul Dravid for his exceptional display of technique and application during the Indian disaster against England - 8 innings, 3 centuries - 461 runs at 76.83.

Hacking Inquiry

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000Z

Satan in Christmas appearance

The Leveson Inquiry into the ethical practices of Britain's journalists has been underway for sometime. Although the Fake Sheikh, who played a key part in identifying the spot fixers, has had his day in the sun. otherwise cricketers have not featured among the long list of celebrities and others who have told tales of intrusion and harassment.

Fantasy Bob has long been the subject of extreme press harassment, in that the press have totally ignored him. FB is waiting to be called to appear before the inquiry to describe his mental anguish at such grossly unethical conduct by the tabloid newspapers. 'Mine is bigger than Hugh Grant's,' said FB.

Fantasy Bob therefore joined the world wide celebrations at the evident discomfort shown by former tabloid editor Piers Morgan in front of the inquiry. Morgan was evasive and uncomfortable when confronted with evidence which might have suggested his earlier denial of ever having listened to hacked telephone conversations was a bit of a lie.

After claiming that he had introduced FB and Mrs FB, and that all their happiness was attributable to him, Morgan refused to discuss whether he had heard a taped conversation between Fantasy Bob and Mrs FB, in which FB agonisingly and movingly pleads with Mrs FB not to ridicule him for getting out for yet another duck.

'I can't discuss where I heard that tape or who made it.' Morgan said repeatedly. He declined to say whether listening to this tape was unethical. 'Every other tabloid was at it, ignoring Fantasy Bob was standard practice - no one saw anything unethical about it. Even now, when I hear the name Fantasy Bob, my immediate response is - 'Who?'.'

Morgan also conceded that he had purchased Fantasy Bob's bank statements from a source known as Benji the Binman who had searched FB's rubbish bins for juicy information. Morgan did not accept that this was unethical. FB's rubbish was in the public domain. 'FB, whoever he is, had the most boring dustbins in the world and it is a matter of public interest that this is widely known.'

Morgan was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004 when he published fake photos of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi. Under his editorship the cricket coverage was pretty poor too.

FB wishes to make clear that Piers Morgan is no relation to Eion Morgan, England's middle order batsman who has never listened to hacked voicemails while at the crease.

Fantasy Bob is resigned to the press continuing to ignore him - even if he were to score a hundred.

The Great Leader

2011-12-20T08:00:00.000Z

The Great Batsman
advising the umpire
that his forward defensive push
was worth 5 runs

North Korean cricketers woke to the news that the innings of the Great Batsman Kim Jong-il had come to a close. Fans had come to believe that Kim Jong Il, Korea's dominant batsman, and by decree their only batsman, would stay at the crease forever. His innings started in 1994 and had seen remarkably few scoring shots. There seemed no prospect of any umpire giving an LBW decision or a catch behind to dismiss him. The secret police ensured that fielders were unlikely to appeal for such dismissals. However Jong-il's middle stump was finally uprooted on Sunday with no chance of a no ball being called. Korean cricketers went into ritual mourning in memory of the Great Batsman's stroke play, despite reports that his obsessive occupation of the crease had led to a severe decline in the standard of teas in the country.

Little is known about the next batsman to come to the crease, Kim Jong-un. He has yet to play any First Class match and his bowling action has yet to be confirmed. There is therefore now great uncertainty in the cricketing world as to whether N Korea will continue with its highly restrictive approach to the game, which has been based a bowling attack relying on nuclear missiles for away fixtures and repressive policing for home games, or whether it will seek new fixtures and improve the quality of wickets and the standard of teas.

Fantasy Bob will watch developments with interest.

The Surreal

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000Z

With Carlton, the go-ahead Edinburgh cricket club expected to announce the results of its world-wide hunt for a new coach shortly, Fantasy Bob can reveal that one candidate at the top of the short-list dramatically withdrew his application at the weekend.

Salvador Dali -
favourite for Carlton job

Salvador Dali, better known as a surrealist painter than a cricket coach, might seem an unlikely candidate for a coaching position at the club, but the selection committee was determined to investigate as broad a range of possibilities as it could. Just to plump for the usual bat or bowler with a Level 3 or 4 qualification would have been too easy. The box needed to be thought outside of. Something special and something different to allow the club to build on its championship season was what was required. And the most famous exponent of surrealism might just have been the ticket.

There are cricketers who claim that as an artistic and philosophical movement surrealism has seen better days. The movement that was begun in Paris by Andre Breton in the 1920s and which proved hugely influential, particularly in the visual arts of the mid 20th century, has done nothing for cricket. These critics also point out that Dali himself died in 1989, a factor which could get in the way of him being able to take a full schedule of net practice sessions at Grange Loan. He might also have difficulty communicating with the junior members whose command of artistic idiom is not yet advanced. However, the selection committee, justifiably, considered that such a view was overly conventional. The surreal has the power to liberate the cricketer from the literal and quotidian, surprising batters and bowlers alike with its dream-like depictions of the raw power of the unconscious. The committee was confident that the possibility of melting stumps and lobsters masquerading as cricket bats could take the club to to new levels.

Dali's most famous cricket picture

However, at the last stage, Dali controversially withdrew his application. Fantasy Bob understands that he was outraged by events during the world famous Carlton Christmas Quiz. The quizmaster, aka the club's popular skipper Fraggle Watts, posed the question 'Which artist said, 'The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad'?'

Teams presented their answers, whereupon Fraggle pronounced that the answer was Pablo Picasso.

The response was immediate. Dali spoke to FB from beyond the grave, 'It is outrageous. I'm missing Strictly Come Dancing final to listen to Carlton quiz and this happens. This is my most famous quote of all time. I actually use it in my application form to Carlton. I meet Fraggle. I think he is my kind of guy who see a lobster in every telephone. But then he compare me to Picasso - this is flash outside the off stump too far, this is one grassing dolly catch at cover point too many. Picasso, pah! With his blue period, his pink period, his minotaurs, his Guernicas. What kind of cricket is that - where are the melting clockfaces? No, I no work with Fraggle. He and me is finito, big time. I withdraw my lobsters. Carlton, so called go-ahead club, can look elsewhere for coach.'

Fraggle Watts in surreal garb

And with that the line went dead before FB could advise the incandescent surrealist that FB's own all-star quiz team had correctly identified Dali as the originator of the quote. This might have appeased Dali, who would soon realise that when FB's Fourth XI take the field they embody the surreal in all senses of the term. FB's team were were on the point of demanding a UDRS of the answer given by Fraggle. It could have been critical to the result. However when the innings closed, FB discovered his team had won the match ahead of the team from Carlton's deadly rival Grange CC. Not wishing to embarrass Fraggle any further, but keen, sportingly, immediately to rub the Grange noses in the vinegar of defeat, his team declined the official challenge in favour of accepting without delay the handsome trophy and the adulation of the handfuls of fans in attendance.

FB spoke on behalf of his team, 'This is the greatest moment of our sporting lives. All the years of intense training have finally paid off. We're gutted about Dali, but, to be honest, we weren't sure he was right for the club.'

Why would FB have doubts about Dali? FB's researches had established that the Spaniard's second most famous quote was 'I am going to my room to masturbate before I have a light lunch if you would like to come and watch.' which, according to FB's sources, he uttered to a selection committee interviewing him for a previous coaching appointment. FB would be concerned that Dali might take the same attitude to tea during the cricket season - a risk Carlton might not wish to take.

Meanwhile Fraggle commented, 'We got off lightly. Having FB associated with this club is surreal enough.'

Security Blanket

2011-12-18T08:00:00.000Z

Carlton's highly trained security personnel
search for the President's wallet

Fantasy Bob has learned how security chiefs at Carlton the go-ahead Edinburgh cricket club have reacted to plans by the Olympic authorities to protect next year's London Olympics from terrorist attack.

FB understands that the club's risk assessment has identified that the deployment of the entire British Army, Navy and Air Force in combination with NATO, the FBI, the CIA and Jack Bauer to protect the London sites has heightened the risk elsewhere, particularly at Carlton's Carlton's world HQ at Grange Loan.

'With a galaxy of international stars playing under the iconic freedom fighter FB and our pavilion bursting with silverware following our championship season in 2011, it is clear Carlton will be a prominent target. We must therefore be prepared for every eventuality. We are now on RED ALERT,' the club's security supremo told FB in his special coloured voice.

Planning is at an advanced stage and among the top secret measures are

Instructions have been given to Carlton's doughty (but nameless) groundsman to dig tank traps at strategic locations around the boundary. He is also armour plating the heavy roller and scarifier against rocket attack;

Snipers (disguised as long limbed ladies langorously sunbathing in shorts) will be deployed at secret locations on the hill;

Following agreement with the local sea scout platoon, naval vessels will patrol the ground ready to intercept any sea or puddle borne threats. Airfix kits have been issued and are being assembled;

Helicopters will monitor all traffic movements and will alert Carlton's executive team of the whereabouts of traffic wardens at all times;

A consignment of surface to air missiles has been ordered from e-Bay and will be deployed at strategic locations. Extra supplies of matches are being stockpiled in case the blue touchpaper gets damp;

All biscuits brought for tea will be individually inspected by Fantasy Bob for signs of tampering. Where safety considerations deem it necessary he will consume them on site.

'Just like FB's Fourth XI, we are taking no chances,' the security supremo concluded. 'To cap all this, we have a highly potent and top secret deterrent. Junior members will approach anyone in Grange Loan asking for a donation to the nets fund. That has always kept people away in the past.'

Present Tense

2011-12-17T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob's worldwide readership of 3 is revolting. 'Listen FB,' they say to a man - or woman - or whatever, 'You keep rabbiting on about middle names, or the Antarctic or Australian batting collapses but you're not dealing with the real issues. Actually, keep on about the Australian batting collapses, we like them, but all that other tosh you go on about? Who gives a whatever? Haven't you noticed that it's getting too close to Christmas for comfort.'

Fantasy Bob has to confess that more than ever this year his characteristically empty mind is uncharacteristically emptier than usual on the Christmas present front. An ideas free zone. A vacuum. A desert. Beyond anything previously known to science. So much so that Mrs FB went foraging for herself last week and came back with the news that she had bought her own Christmas present from him and was marginally grateful. Not as grateful as FB, who is thus spared hours of anxiety in posh jewellery shops whose CCTV systems focus on his shambling frame as soon as it crosses the threshold. He is usually approached by a polite assistant who smiles welcomingly and offers to help by saying 'Just keep your hands where we can see them, buddy.' Now that is service.

So FB is relieved of that trauma. Mrs FB reports that she has sorted his Christmas present out too. There is no end to the wonders of this woman. FB expressed the hope that she had noticed that his treasured Gray Nicolls Nitro had fallen apart at the end of the season and trusted that a replacement had been commissioned. After some contemplation FB decided that the snort that followed would most likely indicate a negative. Mrs FB later opined that if FB wanted one of these cricket bat things he would have to find it for himself.

FB is not normally compulsively competitive but he recognises a challenge when the gauntlet is thrown down and he tracked down the last Nitro Long Handle in the world, for Gray Nicolls has discontinued the line. FB has yet to discover whether this is related to the impact of FB's endorsement of the bat on sales, or some other factor.

Anyway to return to something like the matter in hand - for those agonising over presents for cricket lovers, here is the top 3 cricket books that FB has read this year. He recommends them all:

Duncan Hamilton - A Last English Summer - an extended essay on how cricket is changing world wide and how this impacts on the game at all levels.
Michael Simmers - The Last Flannelled Fool - similar in intent to Hamilton's essay but, in FB's opinion, not quite so successful. Simmers is injured for a season and tours various cricket locations and meditates on what it all means.
Jonathan Agnew - Thanks Johnners - an account of how Aggers got to where he is and how Johnners inspired him.

FB hopes that helps.

Middle name games

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000Z

Douglas cricketer

Fantasy Bob was thinking of middle names today. He himself only has one and he has always envied friends who had a whole alphabet of initials to declaim. Two middle names was something, but God Bless the child with 3 middle names. These were people of destiny.

One hundred years ago to the day, MCC, as they then were styled, were led onto the Sydney Cricket Ground by JWHT Douglas in the second day of the first test of the Ashes series. England lost that match by 146 runs but went on to win the series by 4-1. It was probably the efforts of the bowlers, primarily SF Barnes and FR Foster (only one middle name each) who between them took 66 wickets in the series, which was the difference between the sides. England's batting was dominated by Jack Hobbs (one middle name) and Wilfred Rhodes (no middle name) who shared an opening stand of 147 in the third Test at Adelaide. They exceeded this with 323 at Melbourne in the next Test, which remains the record for England's first wicket against Australia. England had depth in their batting - Frank Woolley (only one middle name) came in at 8.

Douglas - boxer

JWHT - Johnny - was actually a stand in skipper - the appointed skipper Plum Warner (one middle name) fell seriously ill at the start of the tour and was not able to play. Johnny was out first ball in the first innings of the first test. Oops. But he took 4 wickets in the second innings before scoring 32 off 132 balls in the second innings. So obdurate and painstaking was JWHT's batting that the crowd called him Johnny Won't Hit it Today Douglas. The name stuck. But Douglas was a handy all rounder and he could hit it - his top first class score was 210* for Essex against Derbyshire in 1921 part of a tremendous all round performance - he also took 11-40 in the match. Johnny Douglas played 23 Tests, 18 of which he skippered, his career was interrupted by the First World War.

He has the unique distinction not only of having skippered England at cricket but also having been Olympic middleweight boxing champion. (Johnny Will Hit You Today). His family was prominent in the Amateur Boxing establishment and his younger brother became a leading referee in the professional sport in the 1930s.

Johnny Won't Hit it Today puts Fantasy Bob in mind of another sportsman with multiple initials. For many years in the 1970s the leading amateur golfer in Britain was RDBM Shade - known as Right Down the Bloody Middle Shade, for self evident reasons.

Right Down the Bloody Middle

But these days it is the Sri Lankans who put everyone into the middle name shade. Several of their current squad have 3 middle names, Herath Herath has 4 (but maybe they don't all count for his christian name and surname are the same) but the all time record is left arm seamer - U W M B C A Welegedara. Five middle names - a man of destiny. Fantasy Bob understands there to be no truth in the rumour that the Sri Lankan cricket authorities are offering a prize for the best nick name using his initials. But don't let that stop you trying.

Yes - I've got 5 middle names!

Power plays

2011-12-15T08:00:00.000Z

Skipper and vice-skipper

The skipper of Coalition CC has stressed that his side is as strong and united as ever and working hard in the nets. There have been reports of tension between the skipper and his vice captain following the skipper's loss of the toss at the weekend's vital away match. The vice skipper has suggested this only happened because the skipper is a useless tosser. 'This is a toss we expected to win,' he said, 'and losing it condemns us to long hours in the field when we should be getting runs on the board. It is not good news for British batsmen or their families.'

The tension is leading to concerns that Coalition CC might not be able to fulfil its fixtures in the European Cricket League. Some sides have been critical of Coalition CC's approach to the league, citing continual sledging and CCC's unwillingness to support the communal tea fund which has led to critical shortages of chocolate cake at some recent fixtures.

Meanwhile many of the club's more impassioned supporters have been calling for an alternative fixture list to be drawn up. They have said that recent attempts by the faceless administrators of the European League to develop new rules on power plays and bowling restrictions will ruin British stroke play. They demand that Coalition CC should ensure that control of power plays and all matters relating to bowling should return to the club in the national interest.

Pole Dancing

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob might have made a fine Heroic Antarctic explorer. After all, he laughs off the risk of frostbite on the cricketing field, which is severe at most points during the Scottish season. And FB will regularly mount an heroic expedition in even the most extreme conditions to forage for milk at the local shop, an arduous 100 yards from base camp, in the general direction of the North Pole.

But FB was born too late and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration was well and truly over by the time he could tie the laces on his own snow shoes. His destiny was therefore frustrated. Nowadays there is a new age of scientific and high tech exploration and discovery and the Antarctic is on the verge of becoming a tourist destination. The age of exploration is a distant memory.

Amundsen's expedition at the South Pole

FB is reminded of his frustrated destiny by recalling that it was exactly 100 years ago – 14 December 1911 - that Roald Amundsen and his colleagues arrived at the South Pole, the first expedition so to do. About a month after Amundsen, Robert Scott and his expedition arrived to find Amundsen’s campsite, a handwritten message and the Norwegian flag.

Scott's anguish is clear from his diary: 'The worst has happened; All the day dreams must go; Great God! This is an awful place'. The party finally realised that their hopes were shattered. These quotes painfully demonstrate how they were finally forced to conclude that the possibility of cricket facilities being developed in the region were minimal.

Scott's party find no cricket facility at the S Pole

Disappointed beyond imagination, they started to retrace their steps. Amundsen’s expedition made their way safely back to their base – eating a few of their dogs on the journey. Scott’s return was not so happy. Their cricket equipment lay unused in their sledges as their other supplies dwindled. Exceptionally severe weather, injuries and illness hampered their progress. Scott’s fateful journey has been retold and re-imagined many times. Everyone knows how Captain Oates, knowing that his worsening infirmity was holding them back and reducing the chances of survival, left the tent saying ‘I am just going outside and may be some time’. Upper lips were never so stiff. After another 3 days, Scott and his colleagues perished, one by one, in their tent as their supplies ran out. Scott’s letters and diary entries of his final hours remain poignant reading.

Scott was originally celebrated as an iconic British hero, but his reputation suffered after the second world war when more critical assessments of the expedition identified poor planning and uncertain leadership. Revisions of this revisionist view are now less damning of Scott and some challenging external factors such as the weather have been identified. But, all in all, there still lingers something essentially British in the response to the heroic failure; to the apparent dignity of how these men met their fate; and to the fact that their bodies remain where they were found 10 months later. The bodies are now buried under many feet of snow and ice but, in a final irony, are moving steadily along the route that they were travelling as the geology changes – making the journey in death that could not be made in life.

Scott was not a cricketer, nor were any of his final companions. Would they have fared better had they been? JM Barrie the author of Peter Pan and other works, who had his own celebrity cricket team in the Edwardian period was a close friend of Scott’s and was the god father to his son Peter, later a TV naturalist and wildlife painter. So Scott will have had memories of gentle summer afternoons of cricket and tea to warm him as he lay in his final hours in the unremitting cold.

Some hardy souls are re-enacting the race between Scott and Amundsen. Their progress can be read on this link. So far it looks like Amundsen is in the lead again. And they are still unlikely to find cricket facilities in the region.

Alas Australia

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000Z

Warner -
jumping out of the way of victory

Australian cricket bosses were cock-a-hoop yesterday after the team's triumphant turn around in the second Test Match against New Zealand. At 159 for 2 chasing 240 to win, things looked pretty ominous and they were in sight of the finish line. But commentators had nothing but praise for the exceptional lack of character shown by the side to lose the next 8 wickets for 74 runs. And when they got to 192 for 5 a special effort had to be made. Skipper Michael Clarke commented exclusively to Fantasy Bob, 'I'm delighted the way the boys dug in not to dig in. I was proud to show them the way by getting out for 0, one of the better 0s in my career. This is the kind of morale sapping experience we need to set us up for our next batting collapse against India on Boxing Day.'

One of the mysteries of this match was how opener David Warner carried his bat. Clarke commented, 'Strewth. He's there to blast quick runs and he gives us all this sitting-on-the splice stuff. 123 off 170 balls - what's he thinking? He's playing Test cricket or something? He needs to look at Phil Hughes for an example of how Aussie openers should play.' However with Australia's extensive injury list it is likely that Warner will get the chance to get out for single figures in the match against India.

Little Mix - could sharpen the attack

Warner was identified as man of the match for his 123*. This was awarded following a viewer phone in. Rumours are that many of those voting were in fact trying to reach the X Factor lines to vote for Little Mix. This versatile pace quartet may well get the call up for the next match to stiffen the middle order.

Doug Bracewell - walking in the air

Warner aside, there were few positives for Australia in this match. As brittle as they ever have been in the batting order, they can only look at the bowling of Pattinson and Siddle for any kind of hope. And with the batting order of India next up, they are going to need every drop of inspiration as well as the pacemen's perspiration.

But this was a pitch that could have been created for the NZ seamers - and good for them bowling to the conditions. Doug Bracewell in particular whose 6-40 in the second innings was just what the skipper and coach asked for. NZ coach John Wright was part of the side that last tasted victory in Australia in 1985 - a series dominated by Richard Hadlee. If Bracewell can achieve one tenth of what Hadlee did, happy days could be about to return for the Black Caps who have not been hugely convincing recently. Good luck to him.

With Australian morale on the floor Jonny Wilkinson felt it was the right time to announce his retirement from watching international cricket. 2 gripping ends to the 2 controversial 2 match series have been too much for England's leading points scorer. In a statement to Fantasy Bob, Jonny said he expected Little Mix to be a strong contender for the number 10 shirt in the coming 6 Nations. For the avoidance of doubt, FB wishes a true great well even though he wishes he hadn't scored quite so many points against Scotland.

Matisse

2011-12-12T08:00:00.000Z

There is little doubt that Henri Matisse, 1869-1954, was one of the greatest painters of the 20th Century. He is particularly known for his use of bright colour and his fluid and his expressive and original draughtsmanship.

Fantasy Bob would like to make clear that Matisse is an artist that greatly admires. He trusts Matisse returns his respect for FB. However admirer though he may be, FB has to acknowledge that Matisse's attempts at cricket painting were frankly disappointing - indeed they might be more accurately described as rubbish.

This is Matisse's Bowlers - which dates from 1908 and which, as far as FB can see, does not look like any bowling he has seen, even allowing for some artistic licence. It may be that the chap on the left has been giving the ball a good polish but that's about all that seems likely. No wonder then that this work is hidden away in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, where viewers are unlikely to be dominated by cricketers. Even FB could do better.

Even worse is La Danse, which Matisse painted in 1909. Do not be fooled by the subterfuge of the title. FB understands that the artist tried here to depict the fielders in the ring during the bowling powerplay - obviously a very difficult subject since the powerplay was not invented for another 90 years. This painting is in the National Gallery in London where many cricketers might see it. To avert public disturbance, the authorities agreed to change the title from the original - Opening Over: Middlesex v Surrey. Matisse knew he failed because he tried to repaint it a year after. If anything the second version was even less like the real thing, and like his earlier Bowlers has had to be hidden in the Hermitage.

Wisely after these hopeless efforts, Matisse gave up hope of becoming the great cricket painter that he had previously believed to be his destiny in favour of colourful and increasingly abstract work. In doing so he created many of the lasting images of the 20th Century.

Matisse's Snail - 1953

Moscow Protests

2011-12-11T08:00:00.000Z

Ponting - out - out - out

Thousands of cricketers have attended the biggest rally in Moscow since the fall of the Soviet United Cricket League. As many as 50,000 supporters gathered to protest at former skipper Vladimir Ponting for giving up his wicket so weakly in the second Test against New Zealand.

Ponting

Voices in the crowd told of their rage when Ponting shaped to leave a ball from Tim Southee only to find it holding its line. Despite an inelegant swish the great leader was unable to prevent the ball crashing into his pad in front of middle stump. He was on his way to the pavilion before the finger went up. Older protestors say they had not seen anything so shameful since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Putin

'Ponting out, out, out,' chanted the crowd - leaving observers undecided whether this was a call for the great leader to be dropped or an indisputable statement of fact that he was LBW.

Meanwhile there have been reciprocal protests by voters in Australia at the allegations that Ricky Putin's United Russia party perpetrated widespread fraud during Sunday's polls. Putin is firm that the UDRS will not come into play in this series.

New Zealand start the 3rd day of the Test in a strong position 153 ahead with 7 wickets standing. There were no protests in Christchurch.

Hurricanes

2011-12-10T08:00:00.000Z

Hurricane

There is a chance that Fantasy Bob may have misheard something. But he understands yesterday was a day of huge achievement for Scotland and India.

Hurricane Sehwag hit central Scotland - where hurricanes hardly happen - with winds gusting at over 165mph. Schools were closed and transport and other services disrupted.. A wind turbine went on fire and exploded; another uprooted and collapsed. Hurricane Sehwag was caused by a very low and rapidly deepening low pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean meeting a high pressure area to the south creating a steep pressure gradient.

Hurricane

In Indore - where hurricanes hardly happen - Hurricane Bawbag blasted 219 runs in 46.3 overs, to set a new record for an ODI innings. Hurricane Bawbag was caused by a supreme batsman, on a sublime batting track with a fast but small outfield facing less than penetrating bowling. The hurricane contained 7 sixes and 25 fours in his innings.

(For those wondering which IPL side Bawbag plays for some elucidation can be found on this link. Bawbag has yet to be capped at Test level but is one of Scotland's many linguistic gifts to the world. Scotland's cricketing gifts are fewer in number.)

Hurricane

Both events are described by the Met Office as exceptional but not totally unexpected. They warn Australian emergency services to be on their guard in case of a repeat of Hurricane Bawbag in the coming Test series between Australia and India which starts on Boxing Day. Meanwhile Scotland was told to prepare for more storms as winter's grip tightens.

Fantasy Bob would like to make clear to his worldwide readership that he does not consider that Sehwag is a Bawbag in the Scottish sense of the term. Far from it. FB is merely making a puerile joke and is thoroughly ashamed of himself.

In the meantime, and as a diversionary tactic against Sehwag's angry fans, FB invites his readers' attention to Bob Dylan's song Hurricane. It describes some real bawbags whose actions led to the racially motivated prosecution of boxer Ruben Carter in 1966.

Perhaps that's enough about hurricanes - it is certainly enough about bawbags.

High Art

2011-12-09T08:00:00.000Z

Andreas Scholl

Fantasy Bob thinks that there must be a connection between leg spin bowling and the counter tenor voice. Don't ask why he has suddenly entertained such a thought - such unnatural brain activity is a risk of waiting at bus stops. When FB says that there must be a connection, he does not mean in the sense that all leg spinners must be able to sing the high tenor, alto or soprano line required in much music of the Baroque - although some may well. Nor does he mean that all counter tenors should be able to bamboozle batters with a variety of deliveries that fizz and spit off the wicket. He is not aware of any counter tenor who has such abilities, although their appeals for LBW may occasionally be in the falsetto.

The point that FB is making, in his usual laboured way, is that they are skills of a similar category. They are both other-worldly, mesmerising, delivering their own absolute beauty. Those who have perfected them are also rare and true high level performers must be cherished accordingly. So they are connected.

The lineage of leg spin bowling follows a clear line from Charlie Grimmet to Richie Benaud to Shane Warne. Other great artists include Abdul Qadir, Ian Peebles and Anil Kimble. But compared to ten a penny finger spinners they are rare birds, and at the retirement of each there is a collective wonder whether the breed has died out.

Not a castrato

Shane Warne is credited with reviving the dying art. Just as in the 1940s and 50s Alfred Deller revived the counter tenor, as part of a wider rebirth of interest in early music. The line then went to James Bowman and is now held to dazzling effect by Andreas Scholl. He is a truly exceptional artist. His interest and aptitude on the cricket field is untested. But just in case you think this is all pretty effete, Scholl is well over 6ft tall and built like a rugby centre.

Among the roles and parts sung by the counter tenor are those previously sung by castrati - a cruel fashion which persisted particularly in Italy from the mid 16th Century to the 18th Century. Castrati were only finally made illegal in Italy in 1870 and recordings of the last of the breed exist. Cricket never found a place for the castrato, thankfully - although too many batsmen have felt this is their fate as their box was found wanting against fast bowling. And there is no evidence that leg spin bowlers have had to undergo special surgical procedures, although hair weaving has been in evidence.

Leg spin and off spin are completely different things. So the high male voice is wholly different from the female voice in the same register, as composers and opera producers have recognised. The future of the counter tenor looks assured therefore. And there will surely in time be a worthy successor to Andreas Scholl. But whether there will be a successor to Warne is another matter entirely.

Here is an example of Warne's artistry - the ball of the century against Mike Gatting in 1993. And here is an example of Scholl's - the aria Dove Sei from Handel's Rodelinda. Sublime.

The Umpires

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000Z

The ECB revealed earlier this week 2 new members of the umpires panel. The new umpires are preparing to stand shortly in the coming Test series between Eurozone North and Eurozone South. In this special photograph the new umpires show how they dealt with senior batsmen Berlusconni and Papandreou when they refused to walk in the one day series earlier in the season. The umpires ensured that no UDRS was available.

Fantasy Bob understands that the European Central Bank and the England and Wales Cricket Board are, for the moment, separate organisations.

BBC Awards Scandal

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000Z

The coveted
Sportswoman's Trophy

Fantasy Bob understands that chastened BBC bosses have rapidly reviewed the shortlist for the recently launched Sports Woman of the Year. There has been consternation across the nation that their first attempt at a shortlist contained no women. There was even further outrage that it contained 3 golfers who neither women nor have any connection with sport.

It is not only feminists who have pointed out the error of this in a year in which SportsWomen have achieved so much. .......er...........Fantasy Bob cannot for the life of him think of any who have done so............er................... Angela Merkel comes to mind for all round performance in the heavy events but he is not sure if she qualifies. But he is sure that these critics must be right and so he shares their outrage.

FB has only just recovered from the shattering news that he himself was omitted from consideration, despite having had a record year at the biscuit plate. An FB supporter (who prefers to remain anonymous) said 'Just because FB is not a woman is no reason to exclude him from this award. We all know he's absolutely hopeless but that usually gets you pretty far in this competition.'

Liz McColgan

FB is further amazed that there are 2 cricketers in the shortlist - thus fulfilling all quotas for the rest of the decade. Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook have been nominated although they are not the highest achieving cricketers this year by any means. The last cricketer to win the award was Andrew Flintoff in 2005 and 3 other cricketers have been winners, Ian Botham (1981), David Steele (1975) and Jim Laker (1956). 4 Scottish athletes have won, the most recent being Liz McColgan in 1991. She is certainly a woman and a personality.

Panda - trophy is in the bag.

BBC bosses have looked at the PR disaster on their hands. They have held thier heads in their hands. They recognise that this is a bonus threatening position. So they have acted quickly.

They have therefore announced that they will increase the shortlist by including the Pandas recently arrived at Edinburgh Zoo. The Chinese authorities have assured them that the Pandas have a solid year of sporting achievement behind them, mainly in the bamboo eating events.

Bookies have made the Pandas firm favourites for the coveted Sportsperson of the Year trophy.

Wang Feng

2011-12-06T08:00:00.000Z

Wang Feng may not be a name on the tip of cricketers' tongues. Cricketers may stare blankly....but the grey matter is working - didn't Wang Feng made his name in an associate team in the Cricket World Cup of 2007? - or was it 2003?...............it was something like Wang Feng?...........wasn't he that roly-poly all-rounder from, now, where was it?............yes, yes Weng Feng that was him.......whatever happened to him?

Cricketers straining the brain in this way are on the wrong track - big time. Their memory is playing tricks with them. And that is the point - for Wang Feng is the reigning world Memory Champion and begins the defence of his title on 6 December in China. There will be 62 competitors from 19 countries in this elite sporting event. There would have been 63, but Fantasy Bob forgot to send his application in on time. He has decided to enter the obvious jokes championships instead.

Wang Feng having his brain pointed at

Memory competitions are one of a set of Mind Sports which rarely feature in the back pages of the newspapers, or the front or middle pages for that matter either. FB discovers that there are also championships in Speed Reading, IQ, Creativity and Mind Mapping. But Memory is the biggest. So far these haven't really caught on as a spectator sport - largely because its action consists of people looking at things, remembering them and then writing them down in the order that they saw them or a different order as required by the competition. Dynamic on field action is absent, almost like Scottish football.

Wang Feng and his competitors will undergo a series of tests including memorising the order of packs of cards - both a sprint, over 5 minutes, and a middle distance event over an hour. There is memorising strings of random digits and binary sequences. Other disciplines include putting names to faces and ordering randomly generated shapes.

The current world record for memorising packs of cards in 30 minutes is 7 packs. Wang Feng's world record for memorising digits in 5 minutes is 12 rows of 40 digits. FB feels slightly dizzy in recording these feats. It is a far cry from his days of playing Kim's game in the Wolf Cubs (FB's personal record 4 objects including the tray and the cloth...and the table...and the rug under the table.

These disciplines test the raw cognitive muscle and are content and meaning free. The material is remembered specifically to be forgotten. There are established mnemonic techniques which these contestants use and practice. Apparently Feng practices for 7 hours a day. FB has no idea if any of the contestants are any use when it comes to anything useful like cricket statistics. Could they recite the outcome of every ball, all 582 of them, of Brian Lara's Test record innings of 400* in 2004? There would be some point in that.

It is time for Memory Sport and real sport to join up to their mutual advantage. FB wishes to propose a new test for the next Memory Championships. Each contestant should watch a T20 cricket match and record it down afterwards dot for dot. After all this is only 240 events over 2 and a half hours - compared to 7 packs of cards in 30 minutes this seems too easy. But it would be a start.

..................now, where is FB's application form for the Obvious Jokes Championships. He is sure he had it a moment ago................

Moneyball

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000Z

Fantasy Bob has enjoyed reading on the inestimable cricinfo website a stimulating essay by Tasmanian batsman Ed Cowan. Cowan played for Scotland during the 2008 season so is obviously a cricketer of literary flair and imagination.

Cowan makes the point that the conventional batting or bowling average may not be the most useful statistic when assessing a cricketer's ability. This thinking is stimulated by Moneyball, the book by Michael Lewis, which tells how baseball coach Billy Beane created a highly successful Oakland A's team by recruiting players according to statistical parameters to those conventionally used by coaches to value players. Lewis' book is now a movie on general release starring little known cricketer Prad Bitt. FB is looking forward to seeing it.

Coaches have begun to look beneath the surface of the conventionally quoted statistics to determine player's true value to the team. Andy Flower is in the vanguard of this movement and has an analytic team poring over every detail of players' performance. And cricket has lots and lots of statistics that can be used and computers can record every detail of each event. Runs wickets and balls are merely the start.

Ed Cowan
in action for Scotland v Lancs 2008

For instance, should a batsman be valued by the proportion of team runs he gets rather than his absolute average? In limited over cricket, how important is the ability to get off strike to keep the scoreboard ticking over - should the number of dot balls faced be taken into account? For bowlers, how is length and line to be evaluated? What about fielding - where are the statistics for runs saved (or given away)?

More runs Mr Christian

Cowan reports that the Australian Cricketers' Association MVP award takes a range of these factors into account. Through an unpublished formula taking into account runs, wickets fielding, captaincy and several other data it claims to identify the player's true worth over the season. Bowling all rounders dominate the table with top order batters down the table. Someone called Daniel Christian comes out on top of this assessment - FB is ashamed to say he has never heard of Mr Christian, although he is glad to note that characters from the Mutiny on the Bounty continue to prosper.

The truth is that Cowan and Andy Flower are only catching up with FB's practice in looking beyond conventional statistics. FB has been using alternative approaches for a number of years in evaluating the valuable playing resources of his All Star Carlton Fourth XI. Here is an exclusive insight into the key data points:

Number of juniors transported per season to away matches (where players are left behind after match points will be deducted)
Range and quality of biscuits provided for tea
Number of opposition LBW appeals turned down - additional points can be given for style in this category
Time (in hours) spent on scorebook and likelihood of total runs for batters and against bowlers being within 10 of each other
Quality and sincerity of apology following calling skipper for a suicidal single - points can be in direct proportion to expenditure on Koppaberg after the match
Catches taken - for the avoidance of doubt this does not include catches taken as the ball is returned from keeper to bowler or any catch held, accidentally or otherwise, during pre-match fielding practice
Volume and enthusiasm of appeals, appeals made following a batsman creaming it through the covers for 4 are discounted as are appeals made while acting as umpire
Number of references in conversation to Test players of 1960s, expressed as a ratio to the number of claims never to have heard of Daniel Christian

FB looks forward to seeing how the film deals with these important statistics.