Laxative
I’ve just read the email over at Rod Gilmours Nutley to Nagpur website.
As someone who has previously travelled halfway around the world to watch a gutless England performance and also witnessed first hand the post match ‘inquest’, I believe this to be totally true and, as a result, am absolutely livid.
When I went to New Zealand back in ‘97, the excuse given to me by a certain Former England Captain (I’ll abbreviate this to FEC - yeah - you know who I mean) was that despite having gone from 2-0 up in the ODI series to drawing 2-2, the guys were partying hard because it was the end of a long series. When I suggested that I’d just spent a large sum of money to travel halfway around the world to watch the matches, FEC shrugged his shoulders and walked off.
I watched the ‘despondent’ England players (their words in the press the next day, not mine) getting right royally pissed with their NZ counterparts including, it has to be said, a certain NZ all rounder (recently retired) who was unfit to play due to an ankle injury but who pogo’d on the dancefloor like I’ve not seen anyone since the Punk era in the late 70’s, and questioned whether I was prepared to spend this kind of money again to follow my team.
The only guy who seemed to be genuinely upset by the defeat was Alec Stewart. He was subdued and was genuinely apologetic to me when I explained that I had just spent several thousands of pounds to come over to New Zealand to watch England capitulate in the way that only they know how. He suggested that lessons had been learned and that future tours would be conducted in a different way.
Fast forward 10 years. England have just lost The Ashes. They’ve not just lost them, they’ve been forced to pull down their trousers, bare their naked arses and be asked by Monkey Man Ponting and the rest of his ex-convict pals “Who’s Your Daddy?”. They’ve been turned over big time and now I read about this whole debacle with the WAGs?
OK. I play village cricket. I’m never likely to understand the pressures of playing Test match cricket in this life or the next (rumour has it I’ll be back as a dung beetle) so I can’t totally get into the heads of international players but when we go on tour there is a simple rule. No WAGs. Why? Not because we want to go off and shag wanton pieces of local strumpet (although there was that one time in Somerset in 1992), it’s because they’re a distraction. We’re on tour to do a job and that’s to win every game of cricket we’re away for. We don’t need our wives or ankle biters around to distract us. How can you bond as a team if your wife is constantly bitching to you because she wants a sea view or her piles are playing up??
