Biggles of 266
1st Level Red Feather
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2001
- Messages
- 1,126
- Points
- 36
By Andrew Stevenson
November 21 2002
So the Ashes are not coming to Australia. Too fragile, says the Marylebone Cricket Club. C'mon old chaps, can't you find a better line than that?
After all, someone running cricket in England arranged visas, booked tickets and packed the bags of this latest English cricket team. Watching them play you'd have thought the grand gents of the MCC were perfectly content sipping Scotch to ward off the winter chill while fragile packages were dispatched to the Antipodes.
Apparently not.
The adhesive that has been holding together the precious urn for the past 75 years has done its last and best and is spent. The wonder is that it lasted so long.
Instead of marketing tours of its museum to view the Ashes urn, the MCC should find the glue and sell it in tubes. While they're at it, they could inject some in the spine of the English batting line-up.
Seven straight series wins and still the MCC won't let the urn out of its grasp. It's time to lighten up. A bit of blissed-out hippy philosophy might help: in letting go they might find the Ashes actually want to come home to them. Now they look as if they're being clutched in the hands of a desperate jailer.
The condemnation of prime ministers, the criticism of cricketing captains and decades of defeats have left the MCC unmoved. And now, after months of negotiations with the Australian Cricket Board, they offer up fragile.
Have they talked to the English cricket team's travelling physiotherapist? He knows about fragility. The poor fellow cried off himself after less than a fortnight in Australia, overwhelmed by the workload. He sent one poor crock off to Adelaide with a note to buy more bandages.
Watching the English injury toll mount this summer, it pays to keep in mind what sport they're actually playing. We're not talking body contact, big hits or spear tackles. This is cricket, a game played successfully at its highest levels by men closer in age to a pension than the school First XI. To wit, Allan Border, who notched up 153 consecutive Tests, retiring at 38.
Too precious to travel, the Ashes will no doubt continue to live safely in a glass box at Lords. But it's not just Australian cricket fans who envy them their pride of place. Oh how Nasser Hussain must wish he could trade places. That glass box would be roughly equivalent to sticking his thumbs in his ears and lying
on the floor.
There, the sun would warm and not burn, every second ball would be a long-hop or full toss, the crowds would not laugh and, when he saw the snarl forming on Steve Waugh's mouth he could smile, knowing the Australian captain's sledges would be swallowed in the protective pane.
November 21 2002
So the Ashes are not coming to Australia. Too fragile, says the Marylebone Cricket Club. C'mon old chaps, can't you find a better line than that?
After all, someone running cricket in England arranged visas, booked tickets and packed the bags of this latest English cricket team. Watching them play you'd have thought the grand gents of the MCC were perfectly content sipping Scotch to ward off the winter chill while fragile packages were dispatched to the Antipodes.
Apparently not.
The adhesive that has been holding together the precious urn for the past 75 years has done its last and best and is spent. The wonder is that it lasted so long.
Instead of marketing tours of its museum to view the Ashes urn, the MCC should find the glue and sell it in tubes. While they're at it, they could inject some in the spine of the English batting line-up.
Seven straight series wins and still the MCC won't let the urn out of its grasp. It's time to lighten up. A bit of blissed-out hippy philosophy might help: in letting go they might find the Ashes actually want to come home to them. Now they look as if they're being clutched in the hands of a desperate jailer.
The condemnation of prime ministers, the criticism of cricketing captains and decades of defeats have left the MCC unmoved. And now, after months of negotiations with the Australian Cricket Board, they offer up fragile.
Have they talked to the English cricket team's travelling physiotherapist? He knows about fragility. The poor fellow cried off himself after less than a fortnight in Australia, overwhelmed by the workload. He sent one poor crock off to Adelaide with a note to buy more bandages.
Watching the English injury toll mount this summer, it pays to keep in mind what sport they're actually playing. We're not talking body contact, big hits or spear tackles. This is cricket, a game played successfully at its highest levels by men closer in age to a pension than the school First XI. To wit, Allan Border, who notched up 153 consecutive Tests, retiring at 38.
Too precious to travel, the Ashes will no doubt continue to live safely in a glass box at Lords. But it's not just Australian cricket fans who envy them their pride of place. Oh how Nasser Hussain must wish he could trade places. That glass box would be roughly equivalent to sticking his thumbs in his ears and lying
on the floor.
There, the sun would warm and not burn, every second ball would be a long-hop or full toss, the crowds would not laugh and, when he saw the snarl forming on Steve Waugh's mouth he could smile, knowing the Australian captain's sledges would be swallowed in the protective pane.
