England began the second day with an extended fit of weirdly early short-pitched declaration bowling that promoted the possibility of New Zealand surging from their overnight score of 7/291 to something close to 400, via nothing more than a series of byes and top edges. How short were England bowling? Short enough to hit Kyle Jamieson in the head on more than one occasion. In its own way, an impressive feat, although they may have made more of an impression had they bowled at his feet.

More bizarrely, when England took the new ball, they handed it almost immediately to Jacob Bethell. This was enough to momentarily trick me that they hadn’t taken it at all, as Jofra Archer wandered aimlessly around in the field on the advice of a team physiotherapist. (Presumably, a Rajasthan Royals one.)

Was this a ploy from Joe Root to ensure he wouldn’t be asked to captain ever again? A sensible theory, yes, but I prefer to subscribe to the idea that this was Harry Brook secretly pulling the strings. A showcase of how his future Test captaincy, whenever it fully arrives, will be as deliriously, deliciously brainless as his batting. But without the corresponding success. Fingers crossed.

Morpheus Off The Long Run

All of England’s terribleness in the field allowed Glenn Phillips to bring up his first Test century. Great stuff. You bat in sunglasses whenever you like, Glenn.

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Thank goodness this match has finally started, because the drama between Tests had threatened to overwhelm.

First, there was the Lord’s pitch being officially rated as ‘shithouse’ by the ICC. Then Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson were out past their bedtime in the aftermath of the first Test, and being in the vicinity of a punch by some rugby boofhead as an inevitable result. The duo were stood down from this Test match pending further investigation, with initial talk that Stokes might quit the game! Kane Williamson, nice guy that he is, then stepped up and retired on behalf of Stokes. Meanwhile, Ollie Robinson decided one Test was enough for him, thanks very much, Jamie Smith’s wife had a baby and Joe Root was reinstated as interim England captain because Harry Brook, the vice captain, was deemed ‘too ironic’ to take the reins, given his own off-field, late night biffo, curfew-instigating shenanigans six months ago.

So, yeah. More action in the week between Tests than most five-match series.

All the changes to the England team as a result of this mad week meant that Root went into this match with more Tests than the rest of the eleven combined. A stunning stat.

I mean, combined?! Like Voltron?! How many Tests have the rest of the eleven played as one lumbering, many-limbed cricketing gestalt? Is this even allowed under the Laws of the game? Fucken Bazball, man.

Morpheus Off The Long Run

This match was scheduled to be part of the Great Multi-Match Watch of 8pm AEST, June 17™, but somebody had the bright idea to delay it half an hour for a wet outfield or something. Genuinely appreciated.

Also appreciated? The mostly mellow pace at which it was played. A lovely sedate Test match that allowed me to glance over from other screens once or twice to see a surprise wicket, before finally letting it claim a hundred percent of my attention after all the other contests finished. Alas, this was also about fifteen minutes before the teams went to lunch and I went to bed.

Here’s what I missed while I slept:

An unremarkable day, with very few ‘funnies’
Compared to curfews, newborns and bung knees
But also Bethell claimed two
Bowling his unique brand of poo
And Glenn Phillips faced Jofra in sunnies

As mentioned in other report cards, this was the second match to start in a Big Night of Coinciding Sport™, the women playing Bangladesh in a T20 at the same time as the men.

FUN FACT: No Australian cricket team has ever played any nation other than Bangladesh

Sophie Molineux won the toss and elected to bowl first, which felt needlessly cruel on Bangladesh fans. They were in the process of watching their men collapse batting first against Australia. Did they really need to watch the women do so, too?

Still, perhaps the Bangladesh women would succeed where their men could not. Perhaps they would view batting first as an opportunity to set a formidable target and put the pressure back on their fearsome opponents. Perhaps they would counter the Australian attack and set a—

Oh, they’re 5/27.

Banglademolishments
Grade: D+

It wasn’t just 5/27 either. It was 5/27, with Ellyse Perry at the bowling crease, having taken two wickets in her first over. Horrid behaviour from Pez. Still, if that wasn’t going to inspire New South Wales to a stirring State of Origin victory, it was hard to see what would. (Spoiler: it didn’t, and it is.)

But just when we thought the women might reciprocate the men’s chivalry in timing their innings break for when the other’s began, Bangladesh suddenly stopped losing wickets. Or, at least, quite as many so quickly.

Unfortunately, they mostly stopped scoring runs too, spluttering their way to 8/77 from their twenty overs. Australia then ran that down in 9.3 overs (although don’t think I didn’t notice you getting out, Beth Mooney) to seal a comfortable victory. An utter Banglademolishment.

A very normal night of sports viewing began with this game. It would not, however, end with it, as we had both the Australian women and men playing Bangladesh in T20s (the men here as part of their white ball tour, the women in England as part of the T20 Women’s World Cup), while the second England v New Zealand Test and the second State of Origin rugby league match all overlapped at some point around 8pm. Good stuff. The kind of sports viewing night that you might expect to be indulged in by Ozymandias in his Antarctic media centre.

The men were up first, and seemed determined to do their best to minimise any coincidental play, reducing Bangladesh to 6/78 with still 30 minutes (women), an hour (England v NZ) and 60+x minutes (the notoriously loose Origin kick-off time) to go. It all made for an absolutely thrilling contest.

Bangladesh did their part to avoid overlap too, heroically attempting to hit every single ball for six even when those efforts fell short and they were caught in the outfield on, oh, eight or nine occasions. Never give up, lads!

Extinguishers
Grade: D

Australia finally bowled Bangladesh out for 131 in nineteen overs, sending that match to the innings break just as the women’s game started. Chivalry is alive!

When the men resumed, captain Josh Inglis was dismissed early. Cooper Connolly came to the crease, dotted out the first ball, then hit his next three for four, four and six. The young lad obviously as keen as the rest of us to get back to the hotel to watch a big night of sport.

So keen that he perhaps didn’t even notice he was batting with the actual T20 captain, Mitch Marsh. Frankly, I hadn’t noticed either. Wasn’t even aware he was back. Or why he hadn’t been there previously. Lots of details have evaded my mind on this tour.

Anyway, Marsh was soon out, and Connolly followed him a few overs later. But only after scoring 47 (27) and extinguishing any hope Bangladesh might have had of winning this match.

How extinguished was the hope? So badly extinguished that it was relegated to the iPad for its final ten overs. A comfortable win for Australia, who this time didn’t even need the batting heroics of Adam Zampa to seal the victory.

The third ODI in this series unfortunately coincided with Australia’s football World Cup match against Turkey, with the first ball scheduled to be bowled as the second half kicked off.

Disappointing, obviously, for the Socceroos that all of Australia therefore abandoned them and their 1-0 halftime lead for this dead rubber. Still, we wished them luck in our absence. Kick well, lads!

Ha ha ha! No, of course not. This isn’t 1989. We can double screen these things. Hell, we can even put the soccer on the TV and relegate a stream of the cricket to the laptop.

We can cast one eye to the laptop as Professor Xavier Bartlett clinically bowls Soumya Sarkar for just 2 (4), proving that neither side was capable in this series of surviving the match’s first over.

And then, as Bangladesh rebuilt their innings, we could return our attention to the soccer, and enjoy the work of Australia’s beautiful giant wall boys hurling themselves in front of every shot made by the hapless Turkey players, growing increasingly infuriated by this blockade of yellow-shirted flesh between them and the goal.

Funny, isn’t it, how I don’t think of Harry Souttar for four years, then upon being reintroduced to him, immediately fall back in love with this magnificent tower of defending cool-headedness. Australia defeat Turkey 2-0.

A good win by the Socceroos, yes, but important to note that as the final whistle blew, Matt Renshaw had also just taken a key wicket.

Degrees of Filth
Grade: A-

And not just one wicket, but two, as Renshaw proved himself to be Australia’s most dangerous bowler. How dangerous? Dangerous enough that it encouraged captain Josh Inglis to indulge in Marnus Labuschagne Filth™. To be more precise, the leg spinning filth, rather than the filthier medium pace filth.

Regardless of the degrees of filth being thrown at them, Bangladesh continued to strike clean boundaries. Yes, they might have slowed down a little at the end as the heat and humidity took its half-BBL-endorsed toll (The Melbourne Humidity to be the new name of whatever unholy Big Bash hybrid Cricket Victoria inflicts upon its disgruntled fans? You’re hearing it more and more.)

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There was lots of World Cup buzz going around heading into this tournament. And why not? Because, as everybody once again agreed, The Gap™ between Australia and the rest of the field was closing.

Look. It’s a lovely thought. It may even be a somewhat true one. The Australian women, right now, don’t hold either the ODI or T20 World Cup. And, obviously, it’s beyond tedious from every other nation’s perspective to go into a tournament talking up Australia as a force to be reckoned with. That’s a take so cold that Superman could build a Fortress of Solitude there.

So before every women’s World Cup - and especially this one that seems to be trending everywhere (even the US has World Cup fever!) - pre-match chatter from journalists inevitably focuses elsewhere. Sure, there’s lip service paid to the shadow that Australia casts (‘and obviously Australia will be a threat’), but it’s an afterthought. And focus soon turns to whichever nation the journalist in question happens to think has a ‘sneaky chance of surprising a few people’ (inevitably the nation in which the journalist resides).

Like I said, this is all perfectly understandable. And, obviously, it’s as smug as hell to mock it. And, what’s worse, that very smugness just makes those other nations want to discount Australia even more. I get all that.

But it does make things very funny indeed when Australia then comes along and monsters some poor side (in this case, South Africa) in their very first game.

Non-Existent Angles
Grade: C

Sophie Molineux won the toss and elected to bat. She then swiftly clarified that she wouldn’t be batting. No, she’d keep sliding down the batting order until she eventually found herself at eleven. But, in general, as a concept, Australia would bat.

Phoebe Litchfield was the first one to live up to her captain’s promise. She came to the wicket after Georgia Voll was dismissed in the first over - perhaps mistakenly thinking she was part of the Australian men’s white ball squad - and started doing her usual frenetic thing. Up and down the crease, hitting in angles that barely exist (eleventeen degrees north by east west?), making a thundering nuisance of herself as she raced to 50 (24).

At the other end, Ellyse Perry was batting in her usual manner. Sensibly, forcefully, and in a helmet that’s been carbon-dated to the desaturation era. The two recovered from 2/24 after 3.5 overs to 2/61 after 6.4 overs, and then after Litchfield and Ash Gardner both went in a handful of deliveries, Perry just shrugged and performed a similar recovery alongside Georgia Wareham.

Look, she’s old. But she’s reliable. Like a Nokia 3310.

Amazon Prime Shows
Grade: F

And so it went. In between Amazon Prime ads for a seemingly infinite number of generic thriller television shows and movies, Australia stuck almost precisely at 8.5 runs an over for their entire innings.

Now, I don’t know whether the Amazon Prime ads are personalised or not. I guess it’s possible. Maybe none of these shows they were thrusting at me in between overs even exist and if I were to inexplicably click on one of them, they’d have to generate them on the fly with just-in-time AI technology. Who can say.

In fact, that’s surely what they’re doing, right? I know I was watching this game in the small hours of the morning and therefore wasn’t paying super close attention to every show/movie advertised. But they were so blandly predictable and previously unheard of, that they must currently only exist in programmatically generated trailers for stories in which a grim/disgraced/snarky detective/profiler/forensic accountant must investigate/infiltrate/invoice a drug ring/serial killer/Ponzi scheme in a city that never sleeps/a small town with secrets/somewhere where it always rains.

Very confusing stuff. Not quite as confusing though as when Perry reviewed a ball for being an above the waist full toss. The ball-tracking informed her that the trajectory placed the delivery just below her waist at the crease, then showed a graphic that seemed to suggest that they’d measured her waist height while she was in stilettos.

Come on, Pez. Think before you show up to these waist-measuring days!

Shielding Laura Wolvaardt
Grade: F

None of it mattered. Australia reached 8/172 from their twenty overs, almost precisely the 8.5 runs per over they’d been going along at their entire innings. Mathematics, FTW!

Molineux celebrated her success at not having to bat in the innings by opening the bowling instead and taking the wicket of Sune Luus in her first over.

South Africa, for their part, inexplicably decided to shield their other opener, captain and best batter (these are all Laura Wolvaardt) from the strike, letting her face about eleven balls in the power play for some reason.

As tactics went, it wasn’t a great one. The required run rate soon grew out of control, as Australia sent four spinners into action, like it was a ceiling fan convention or something. Sure, one of those spinners, Ash Gardner chose to drop an outfield catch over the rope for some reason, but even that wasn’t enough to get South Africa anywhere near Australia’s total. They spluttered to their doom, bowled out for 107 in 16.4 overs.

Still, a show of mad respect for The Hundred. You have to give them that.

Australia’s heroic attempts to drag comic cricketing attention away from England’s ongoing shambolism continued in this second ODI. There were momentary celebrations when Matt Short survived the first two deliveries of the match, a feat that had proven beyond the opening batters in recent matches.

But any thoughts of offering Short an Order of Australia for his efforts were blown away a couple of balls later when Short shouldered arms and had his off stump dismantled. Mustafizur Rahman continued the blowing away vibe in the next over, by dismissing Cooper Connolly for a first ball duck, followed by Matt Renshaw to complete a double wicket maiden.

Australia 3/0 after two overs, then, and this series and the previous one in Pakistan were, once again, very much highlighting the Australian batters’ ongoing weakness against the swinging, seaming, spinning, undeviating or full toss ball.

England head honcho (to use his official title) Rob Key has recently been forced into the genuinely astonishing position of having to deny that his team were a ‘national embarrassment’.

None of Australia’s honchos (head or otherwise) have yet been similarly quoted, but we can only assume that it’s because they’re yet to be made aware this series is taking place.

Marnus Labuschagne
Grade: C+

Having dispensed with the notion of opening batters in cricket, Australia did mount some kind of fightback from that point. Marnus Labuschagne, based on recent form, could not be trusted to face the new ball at his usual position of number three. He instead faced the new ball from seven and, in a sign of precisely how bad Australia’s batting has become, proceeded to top score for the innings, with a disappointingly sane knock of 55* (85).

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The Great Australian Half-Assed Midwinter White Ball Tour of Asia continues with our plucky band of out-of-their-depth heroes moving on to Bangladesh.

After winning the toss and sending Bangladesh in to bat, the men in canary yellow had the good fortune to listen to the Bangladesh national anthem, which is an out-and-out bop. Great news for Australian cricket fans thinking of attending the top end Tests later this year.

Less great news for Australian cricket fans was Bangladesh charging out of the blocks at better than six runs an over.

Sure, they lost Saif Hassan early to a sharp catch from Marnus Labuschagne, who continues his outstanding resurgence as a specialist fielder with a side hustle in bowling gentle medium pace filth.

But then Marnus also dropped a catch. So maybe time for him to revert to the whole batting caper again. Something to ponder at least.

Falling Behind England
Grade: D

Or perhaps that’s being hasty. For the Marnus drop turned out to be merely the first in a series of comical fielding incidents throughout the Bangladesh innings. Chances went down, balls were fumbled, Cameron Green inexplicably underarmed a throw from the boundary to allow Mosaddek Hossain to steal a second run and shield his tail end partner from the strike. Great stuff.

This is clearly an Australian team who’s cast a wary eye at the shenanigans taking place over in England and realised just how far they’ve fallen behind the old enemy in terms of comedy cricket.

Yes, Australia have had their captains caught up in cricketing scandals, but this feels like a proper new level from Ben Stokes. Will he be sacked? Will he resign? Will he - and this is the most important thing - cry on the telly, thereby forcing the warbling hand of the Barmy Army and their rigorously consistent mockery? Much to consider.

A handful of fielding mishaps may seem futile in the face of such high standards of absurdity from England. But it’s a start. Australian comedy cricket can rebuild from here.

Golden Ducks
Grade: A-

Especially since, after Bangladesh reached 8/284 from their fifty overs, Australia began their innings with yet another first ball wicket. This time, it was Matt Short signing off early for comedic golden duck purposes. Marnus soon followed, clearly having no interest in returning to the previous mentioned batting caper. It’s now been seventy (70) international innings since Marnus scored a century (100), which sounds damning, but on the plus side, he’s no more than thirty (30) away from registering another in one (1) way or another.

From there, it was a steady precision of wickets, mostly to stereotype-smashing speedster Nahid Rana, a man utterly fed up with Australians and their constant moaning about helpful Asian spinning wickets.

The game was over as a contest after thirty overs. Green hung around for a while after that, which was annoying to those of us back home who just wanted to go to bed, but thankfully rain came along and brought a Duckworth-Lewis-Stern sanctioned merciful end to it all.

Still, a quite funny 86 run defeat, especially since so little spin was needed to bring the Australians undone. We’re coming for your comedy crown, England.

Twelve hours later, the ECB are clutching their pearls like a Rotary Club treasurer who’s just found a durry in the raffle tin because he did precisely that.

Spare me.

Look, I don’t have any particular view on the specifics of what went on at the nightclub in question. I was asleep at the time. Or maybe I wasn’t. The timezones are all over the shop. But from what I gather, Gus Atkinson had a disagreement with some rugby player at a nightclub, who attempted to throw a punch at him, missed, and chinned some dopey ECB security guard instead.

I don’t blame Stokes or Atkinson for this. They’d just won a Test match, so obviously they’re out on the tiles. Sure, it was another one of the Poms’ coin toss victories where they jag a few lucky breaks on a lottery pitch and claim that they’ve now cracked Test match cricket. But, fair play to them, they have to take what they can get at this point. Plus, it was Ben’s birthday. So of course they were out celebrating like they’ve just found a lobster in an old pair of shorts. Why wouldn’t they be?

I don’t blame the rugby player for throwing a punch either. Who among us can honestly say they haven’t wanted to take a swing at an England bowler every now and then? Bloody hell, I spent half my playing career trying to think of a way to go the knuckle on Andy Caddick.

And the security guard? Sure, he needed stitches, but you’d think a man being paid by Rob Key to babysit adult professional cricketers on their night off knows he’s signed up for the odd bit of biffo.

And now, for some reason, because of all this, some nosy prick going by the name of The Cricket Regulator is involved. The Cricket fucken Regulator? Mate. ‘Oh, don’t mind me, chaps. I’m just here to regulate your cricket. The last thing you want your cricket to be is unregulated.’ Piss off back to wherever you came from, you lanyard-chewing stickybeak.

Now, you’re probably thinking this is another chapter in a long and sorry story of England cricketers embarrassing themselves off the field. And obviously it is. There’s no denying that. It’s humiliating as fuck.

But, and I can’t stress this enough, Stokes told them beforehand. He stood there on Sunday and said ‘I’m going to have a beer with the boys.’ Clear as a cucumber. The ECB heard that and presumably thought ‘yes, lovely, perhaps a quiet pint at the hotel bar, home by nine, lights out, lovely.’ Fuck me, lads. That’s not what ‘a proper beer with the boys’ means. Not that I’d know, I stopped celebrating birthdays at age eleven. But it’s pretty bloody obvious he’s planning to kick on.

Now, yes, technically there was a curfew in place. But who the fuck cares? As far as I’m concerned, curfews are for boarding schools and ankle bracelet wearers. Not worth the alarm clock they’re written on. Besides, Stokes had a hand in putting the bloody thing in place, so it makes sense that he can bin it if and when he sees fit.

The curfew was only there to pacify the bloody do-gooders after the Harry Brook carry-on in New Zealand, anyway. And now, if Stokes steps down, Brook will replace him. Proper Alanis Morissette areas of irony, that. Shit-tons of spoons in a lone knife-seeking situation. Still, this is what fucken curfews get you. And, at this point, it wouldn’t surprise if Brook celebrates his ascension to the England captaincy for the next Test in a manner that sees him immediately suspended from the captaincy for the next Test. Courtesy of our lord and saviour, The Cricket Regulator.

Look, here’s my advice to the ECB, for what it’s worth, coming from a former Australian Test cricketer who has never lost a microsecond of sleep over England’s disciplinary procedures. Give it away. You cannot legislate sober behaviour into a mob of pissheads. Especially not with Baz McCullum in charge, egging them on the whole time. You can write it in the team handbook, you can have the security guard standing there, blowing his whistle at midnight until he’s blue in the face, like he’s stumbled into a fucken Cinderella pantomime. You can slap fines on them. You can wag your finger at them. You can ‘regulate’ all you like. And at the end of it all, Ben Stokes is still going to have a proper beer with the boys. That’s who he is. And that’s who his team is.

So let them party. Let them fight. Let them go to nightclubs. Let them get drunkenly lost in Noosa. Let them select Zak Crawley. Stop being so uptight.

The ECB’s real embarrassment here isn’t that Stokes broke curfew or that a boofhead prop forward tried to deck Atkinson. It’s that you’re still acting surprised by it. You look like absolute dills hiring cricket regulators and punching-bag minders, screaming into the void, fighting against the inevitable. Ask King fucken Canute how that worked out. Here’s a clue: not fucken well. You just come across as a sub-committee of officious little wowsers, having an attack of the vapours at the notion that the skipper of your cricket team might want to go clubbing because he’s won a Test for once, despite his shithouse batting and captaincy, and happened to stumble into an impromptu three a.m. rugby match alongside the only bloke in the team who had the common fucken decency to hang out with him. That’s the real scandal, and every press release you spew forth from your high performance printers makes it worse. Stop kidding yourselves and get behind your team for once in your tiny-minded lives.

Oh, and happy birthday, Ben.

After the tedious rain scuppered everybody’s plans for a day three finish, the two sides returned to give a day four finish a serious crack.

Remember way back during the first over of this Test, when England inexplicably failed to lose a wicket, I made the point that New Zealand were badly missing Mitchell Starc? Here, in a small fourth innings run chase, they were similarly badly missing Travis Head.

Having said that, Glenn Phillips did his best Head impression. (Like one of those Spitting Images puppets, I suppose?) He thrashed at things with gusto, carefree about the prospect of losing his wicket, sensibly reducing the game to scoring as many runs as possible before his knock was inevitably terminated. A metaphor for life itself, perhaps.

But nobody could stick with him. Not even first innings hero King Kyle Jamieson. And so New Zealand were bowled out for 138, still 116 runs short of victory. England take a 1-0 lead in this series.

The instant the match ended - and, to be honest, from a few days before then - complaints about the pitch surfaced. Or perhaps complaints about the surface were pitched.

I dunno. I reckon any Test in which there’s no need to call on Jacob Bethell’s ‘bowling’ is a good one. (This is obviously an unfair jab at Bethell. In an ideal world, I’d be making this joke about Marnus, but he foolishly wasn’t taking part in this match.)

Having said that, perhaps in a milestone Test you do maybe want more than one innings in which the number of runs scored is higher than the number in the milestone.

Lots to ponder. (Or, y’know, forget about until the second Test. Either works.)

The third day began with rain. This was obviously a nuisance. It did, however, let the SKY commentators partake in some mindless rain delay waffling. Which, to be fair, was pretty entertaining mindless rain delay waffling. Few commentators mindlessly waffle during rain delays better than Athers, Nasser, Broady and co.

I sort of tuned out and did Sudokus on my phone for a while, because that’s the kind of Saturday evening partier that I am, but I assume they focused too much on the Ashes for a bit. Maybe they asked whether England focus too much on whether England focus too much on the Ashes. Anything is possible.

I do know that at one point I looked up, and Kane Williamson was teaching me how to bat. Which was lovely of him. A splendid chap. Sure, he tried to explain how one must choose which side of the ball you want to hit, which felt a tad show-offish. But we also know that no New Zealander would ever big themselves up like that (their number one export is hobbits, for goodness sake!), so he must have meant it. It reminds of the time Kumar Sangakkara very helpfully explained that the key to picking up which way the ball was going to swing was to have a look for the shiny side of the ball when the bowler is at the top of their mark. Righty-o, Kumar. Calm down with the super-eyes. I can barely see my batting partner’s face.

The point was that I could listen to Kane Williamson talk about batting forever. And, at one point, I feared that was exactly what was happening.

Then, of a sudden, the rain stopped! And everybody scurried back onto the field (after a forty minute lunch break) to resume play. Ollie Robinson took a couple of wickets. New Zealand scored a dozen or so runs. And then the Lord’s rain, which needs to have a long hard think about what it’s trying to achieve here, returned, and they all scurried off again.

Frustrating stuff. Especially since Ollie Robinson’s successful return means we’ll now almost certainly have to listen to an inordinate amount of tedious Haydos ‘nude nuts’ bantz next year. Is it worth it, England? Is it really worth it?

Morpheus Off The Long Run

Here’s what else I missed while I slept.

Nothing

Yes, that’s right. The rest of the day was washed out. Let’s try again tomorrow.

New Zealand lost early wickets on day two as the ball continued to move all over the place like a cat-tormenting laser pointer.

Y’know, somewhere between the recent respective spates of both two-day Tests and 250+ v 250+ T20s exists the perfect balance between bat and ball. Admittedly, that’s not narrowing things down much, but perhaps all forms of the game could take a step back from the extremes and wander in the vague general direction of the middle.

It wasn’t until Kyle Jamieson arrived at the crease, determined to score only in wild, slogged sixes or strike-rotating singles, that New Zealand showed any prospect of getting close to England’s first innings total. And when he was joined by Will O’Rourke, we had the delightful sight of a giant pair of batters at the crease, belly-laughing at the comical tiny people who were running in and throwing their puny balls at them, while the slips cordon positioned themselves in a nearby beanstalk.

Alas, Jamieson’s inevitable magnificent bonkers century was denied him, thanks to his hapless bowling partners. New Zealand all out for 113, Jamieson stranded 62 short on 38* (29).

Hypnotising Mr T
Grade: A-

England began their second innings with unwelcome caution, with both Emilio Gay and Ben Duckett in defensive mindsets. Boooo! Did they learn nothing from the New Zealand innings? Either hit comical towering sixes (like Jamieson) or get out (like everybody else). Entertain us, you monsters!

If anything, the pair should have been even more confident in taking some funny risks, given the second innings record of Jacob Bethell. For while their sillily-haircutted number three averages about 8 in first innings, he averages 80-odd in the second innings.

Y’know, as a child, I vividly recall watching an episode of The A-Team where Hannibal, Face and Murdoch had BA Baracus hypnotised, so that if they said the word ‘eclipse’ to him, he’d fall immediately into a trance that would allow the others to get him on a plane, despite his infamous fear of flying. Great stuff. Proper 80s television. More of this, please. Sure, things went wrong later in the episode when a different string of words of which ‘eclipse’ was a subset (‘pass me the clips’) was uttered in the middle of some casual heated gunplay, leading to the team’s most physically intimidating member taking an untimely nap. Ha ha ha! How are you going to get out of this one, A-Team? Will your plan actually come together this time? (Answer: yes)

I guess what I’m saying is this: why hasn’t Brendon McCullum yet hypnotised Jacob Bethell into thinking first innings are second innings?

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This match was due to start during the first day of the England v New Zealand first Test. Helpfully, Lord’s had arranged some rain for us. Less helpfully, Pakistan had simultaneously arranged a wet outfield that delayed the toss. Come on, lads. Sort it out. Communication!

Australia won the toss and batted first, losing the wicket of Matt Short second ball. This, of course, was a 100% improvement on the first ball wicket of Alex Carey in the previous ODI. Pakistan on the back foot early.

And even more so when captain Josh Inglis, having promoted himself to opener, settled early into milking the spinners (despite PETA’s objections!). This has been a superb series for Boring Middle Over fans such as myself, but Marnus eventually ruined it, running himself out like an entertaining nitwit. And then the rest of the batting decided that looked like fun too and started collapsing all over the place. But by that stage, I’d gone back to the Test match. And then, also, eventually bed.

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Well, well, well. Another England summer dawns, and with it, Test cricket. Blessed Test cricket. Oh, sure. We got a bit of Bangladesh-Pakistan a couple of weeks ago, which was great, albeit a tad more YouTubey than I’d like. And then an Ireland-New Zealand Test last week that was effectively invisible. Now, though, …

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The second ODI began with Alex Carey bowled first ball, playing on. Hilarious stuff from the mild-mannered gloveman. You might even say, hiCareyous stuff (assuming you had a bizarre speech impediment).

Still, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - there’s never been an Australian wicketkeeper who has succeeded opening the batting in ODIs. Why the team perseveres with this kind of selection remains a mystery to me.

Perhaps it’s all part of Australia’s ongoing newest bit, in which they lose pretty much every bilateral series between World Cups before going on to then win the tournament. And, if so, fair enough. It was funny leading into 2023. It’s funny now. Much better, comedically speaking, than boring old Ricky Ponting’s ‘let’s win everything inside and outside of World Cups’.

Shortening One’s Name
Grade: D-

Pakistan were willing to help with the gag, shifting swiftly to spin, with immediate success in both drying up the run rate and taking wickets. Is it fair how opposition teams can just bring on spinners and effortlessly dismantle the Australian batters? Self-evidently not. In a way, spin bowling is a form of lying.

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(tapping microphone) Is this thing on? Yes? (clears throat)

And… we’re back. I mean, sort of. The IPL is still technically going, but the power of its gravitational pull is weakening as more and more teams are eliminated from its sheer space-time-cricket distorting mass. (And, once again, a massive thank …

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Use the following points of comparison to decide:

1. Occupation
   a. Runs a junk dealership
   b. Deals in junk runs’n’shit

2. Origins
   a. Outer rim of the galaxy (Tatooine)
   b. Outer rim of Brisbane (Ipswich)

3. Appetite for Risk
   a. Outlandishly willing to gamble against a child (a future ruler in the Empire)
   b. Childishly willing to gamble against an out (a past ruling of an umpire)

4. Immunity
   a. Immune to Jedi mind tricks
   b. Immune to Mickey Arthur homework tricks

5. Anatomy
   a. Tiny back wings that defy the laws of aerodynamics
   b. Giant front pad that defines the Law of leg before wicket

6. Ownership
   a. Inextricably involved in a system of servitude in which human beings are treated as property, required to perform labour for the benefit of whoever purchased them, and subject to being transferred to new owners on an ill-considered whim
   b. Played in the IPL

Tally your answers to decide what Watto you like best!

Mostly option A? Then you prefer Watto.

Mostly option B? Then it’s Watto for you.

An even mix of As and Bs? Watto dilemma!

Watto or Watto? Let me know in the comments.

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Good news (for me)! I’ve just signed a two-book deal with Allen & Unwin and am about to start work on my next cricket book. Which means, once again, I’m inviting you to watch it all unfold, shadowing me throughout the entire process like some kind of literary Nazgûl.

The idea is the same as last time. Over the next six months, a small group of people wil…

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And now there’s nothing.

Not nothing nothing. There’s the IPL, if you want to be up at midnight like a glassy-eyed possum, watching a fifteen-year-old tonk sixes into baying crowds, all screaming deliriously like they’re at a bloody Robbie Williams concert, and the big fella’s just taken off his shirt during ‘Rock DJ’.

Have you heard about this kid? Just out there, playing in the IPL, bold as brass. I’m not talking about one of those BBL ankle-biters who stand awestruck on the field while the fireworks go off then get to keep a player’s cap as a reward. Or those Rock Eisteddfod munchkins doing elaborate gestures at a Power Surge button like they’re in a school play about the wonders of electricity. Or the little ferals in the stands chasing after sixes like golden retrievers and lobbing them back into the ground. No, this little shit is playing in the actual match. Fucken smashing them too.

Everyone’s going spare about it - ‘extraordinary talent’, ‘generational prospect’. Analytics merchants weeping into their laptops. Look, good on the kid. Genuinely. Maybe he is that talented - I wouldn’t know, I’m not staying up until three in the morning to find out. But, frankly, I’m not that impressed. As far as I’m concerned, it just means the ‘best T20 competition on Earth’ can be dominated by some young ratbag jacked up on red cordial. That’s not a tribute to the child. That’s a damning indictment of the format. Hell, my asthmatic niece could hit just as many sixes if you gave her a big bat, a flat pitch, and boundaries shorter than a Hobart summer.

No wonder none of the Aussie bowlers can be arsed playing over there. What are you gonna do? Bounce the little bastard? You can’t win - you get him out, you’re being a cruel mongrel, picking on a child half your age. You let him slog you around, you’re a hopeless clown, past your prime. Nah, if I were Big Hoff, Big Cummo or Big Mitch Starc, I’d keep doing what they’re doing - stay at home until this precocious terror’s forced to go back to school or whatever.

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