Bring back Aftab Habib*

Misbah (right) and his man tats

Maybe not. That would be a bit too much of a knee jerk reaction. But England’s batting performance over the course of the last 3 days shows that England aren’t as good as the majority of people thought. England may be the number one ranked team but great teams don’t get bowled out for less than 200 twice on a placid pitch (this wasn’t a green seamer in England or the WACA remember). Watching the highlights, England looked a bit clueless. Alistair Cook for example. Today he seemed to get out the way I get out. It goes something like this through my head “I can hit that. Yeah, I’ll have that. Actually, no I won’t I might get out. Shit I’ve got bat on that. I’ve neither left it or larruped it. I’ve got out like a tit”. In his first innings he was a victim of his over confidence – trying to impose himself on a spinner early in the game. In his second innings he was a victim of pessimistic indecision. Very English, you wouldn’t have seen Hayden, Langer or Waugh get out like that.

KP

I didn’t want to go on a rant about Kevin Pieterson but unfortunately I appear to have no control over my fingers this evening. I like KP – I’ll get that out there to start with. But, having seen his shot today (live as I had it on in the office) I wanted to get his bat and ram it up his sphincter fat end first. “It’s the way he plays” “He averages over 50” – bollocks. In no way should a professional cricketer get out 8^th ball slapping a long hop to backward square leg. In Monday’s Times he claimed that he never played well in the warm up matches and that the first 10 balls of a series are the most important in the context of the rest of the series. Having scored 2 runs from 47 balls I can only presume he’s now thinking he might as well go home.

Losing

The thing that I found the most disappointing about this test was that England were rolled over so easily. In the first innings, possibly understandable – alien conditions, new ground, a little under prepared. In the second innings, having been taught how to bat by the Pakistani’s for the best part of two days, I’m not so sure. Let’s hope that England can bounce back in the second two tests and make a good series of it. Well done to Pakistan though they executed their skill sets, performed well as a unit and showed great unity. Enough media clichés in that sentence for you? Hope so, it’s like reading the transcript of every England press conference over the last 3 years.

Misbah

Are they moobs or pecs?

*For those not in the know Aftab Habib played two tests for England in the 1990′s scoring 26 runs in 3 innings. He played in an era when England chopped and changed the team everytime they lost. Habib, who averaged over 40 in first class cricket, was one of said players that was drafted in to try and save England. He looked a bit like a hamster.

Chucking

I turned on Test Match Special this morning to hear Jonathon Agnew talking to Ramiz Raja at the lunch break. They were talking about the first day’s play and in particular Saeed Ajmal’s haul of 7 for 55. They were talking about the British newspapers (The Guardian, Telegraph, The Mail to name but three), and the fact that they’d reacted to his record haul by writing about his so called suspect action. This annoyed me. Firstly, that the British newspapers had decided to run with articles on this instead of focusing on England’s insipid batting display and secondly, that they felt the need to talk about it on TMS. Now correct me if I’m wrong but unless a bowler is throwing it like a baseball pitcher does anyone really give a fuck about chucking? I certainly don’t. I really don’t see what any player can gain even if his arm does flex slightly more than 15 degrees anyway. If it looks like he’s bowling it then that’s fine by me. The game’s already heaped in the batsman’s favour as it is – add to the fact that Ajmaal has been cleared to play by the ICC and I don’t really understand why his action has to be scrutinised in this way yet again. Lazy journalism, that’s what it is.

Trying

After two days it’s patently obvious that this series means a lot to Pakistan. The way they celebrated the wickets and the way their batsman have fought today is the way that it should be. It’s great to see. They’re a team predominantly made up of cricketers that have been around for a while but, to the non cricketing enthusiast, remain relatively unknown. Perhaps this is the key – they play with the humility of team still looking to make a name for themselves. Unlike India who – in their last two test series – have played with an arrogant regal air of a team of millionaire prima donnas when things haven’t gone their way. Good on you Pakistan. Watch and learn India.

Predicting

Prior to the start of the Pakistan England series I made three predictions on Twitter. They were as follows:

1. England would lose a test in this series
2. Saeed Ajmal would be the leading wicket taker
3. It would be a good toss to lose as it’d do a bit in the morning.

So with England at 43 for 5 before lunch yesterday Saeed Ajmal having taken 3 for 1 I was feeling pretty smug with myself if a little disappointed at England’s poor performance. Shame I hadn’t put some money on it. My predictions weren’t without proof. Those who read my blog before the start of this series will testify this. This match/series is far from over yet though but the start to this test match has only highlighted how well contested it could be. Day 2 of a potential 15. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Spot fixing

Spot what?

So, taking the 12^th of January as the example this is where I was and and what I was up to on that day for the 5 years preceding this one. It’s a bit like that book One Day but with more emphasis on eating, binge drinking and skiing.

Eward on Mission Beach

12^th January 2007 – Magnetic Island, Australia

Exact diary entry: “Drive from Mission Beach to Townsville after visiting the length of Mission Beach. Stop @ Jourama falls. Dump hire car in Townsville, meet Eddie Sheldon then boat over to Magnetic Island. Eat Thai curry. Drink lots. Drinking games.”

This was a particular good part of the trip. Howard had come out to Auz for the cricket and I was in the process of giving him a whistle stop tour of Australia before he headed home. After New Year’s Eve in Melbourne and a brief soiree up the Great Ocean Road to our relatives in South Australia we flew to Cairns met up with Sally, Amy & Eddie Sheldon and headed down the East Coast winding up on Magnetic Island for a few days. On the pop, in the sunshine, with friends. Happy days.

Our coach. On a wooden boat.

12^th January 2008 – La Paz, Bolivia

Exact diary entry: “Leave Puno @ 7am. Bus to border then to Coppacabana. Stop for an hour on sea front for lunch. Dodgy bus to La Paz including strange lake crossing. Arrive La Paz. Eat. Start drinking. Route 36 bar. All nighter.”

One of the most random few days of the South America trip. Firstly, on the bus trip – which was shit at best – in between Coppacabana and La Paz you have to cross the Straits of Taquina. It’s utter lunacy. All the passengers get off the bus and get on a passenger ferry to the other side. The buses, however, with all your gear on, get driven on to rickety wooden boats and meet the passengers on the other side. Only in South America. Secondly, I got involved in a pretty hefty binge as soon as we arrived in La Paz and the booze up on the 12^th lasted well into the 13^th. In fact, what happened on the 13^th exactly will forever remain a mystery. As for the 14^th – bed day. La Paz is just one of those cities.

The Alphof platter. For two.

12^th January 2009 – Alpbach, Austria

Exact diary entry: “Skiing, Austria”

Literally, that’s all it said. But I can elaborate. This was the first of the Benjamin family skiing holiday’s and remains the best in my eyes. The skiing was hard but the scenery and company was excellent and we spent many an evening eating monstrous amounts of food and drinking wine. Splendid. Eating highlight of which being the famous platter at the Hotel Alphof. It was epic.

From the top of the disused ski jump

12^th January 2010 – Borovets, Bulgaria

Exact diary entry:  “Don’t ski. Go to Samakov & Goverdatsi.”

Borovets was an experience. The second Benjamin family skiing soiree. We arrived in pretty much tropical conditions – they’d not had a sniff of snow for weeks and it was about 5 degrees C. Not great for skiing. Not a happy bunny. The majority of the pistes were shut, the rest, busy and lethal with ice. Putting it into perspective the same resort is currently covered in snow and -10 degrees. It was just bad luck that we’d picked their warmest winter in years. Still, we made up for it by devouring the ample buffet each day and exploring what we could. Highlight of which was finding the disused communist ski jump and climbing to the top.

Simple

12^th January 2011 – Cervinia, Italy

Exact diary entry: “Ski. Quiz” – I clearly don’t spend much time diary writing when skiing it seems..

The third and final Benjamin family skiing trip was to Italy. After the previous year’s disappointment Momma Benj wasn’t going to risk not skiing this year so picked one of the highest resorts in the Alps. We weren’t let down as we were treated to the best skiing of the three trips. We were also treated to a Nidge. Howard’s +1 this year was a certain village oaf called Nigel Burrows. It turned out perfectly. He got on famously with Poppa Benj, took Howard out each night (nearly breaking him) before waking up each morning (Howard still dead) bright and breezy to come skiing with me. Him & I ski in a similar way – unruly but in control and fast. It was brilliant and probably the best I’ve ever skied. The 12^th was notable for the quiz we attended which – I think – we nearly won but didn’t. Also notable for Howard’s head turning in Mikhail Gorbachev’s for nearly an hour. It was seriously weird. It was a good trip and by the end of it EVERYBODY in the whole town seemed to know Nigel. What he & Howard got up to on their nights out will forever remain a mystery.

Needless to say, in comparison, January the 12^th 2012 was a disappointment. I went to Gloucesterhire then Exeter. But it was a good run while it lasted.

Eating wise my habits after New Year’s Day changed rapidly. It had to as it had got to the point where I think I was actually making myself ill by the quantities of rich foods I was consuming. If I’d have gone to the doctors I think they’d have told me that I was within hours of turning into a brie. Also, by early Christmas Eve, Gaviscon was my new best friend. Not healthy. So last week it changed. Out came the running shoes again and Lisa & I adopted the MyFitnessPal app on our phones. This app allows you to set a limit on the amount of calories you want to eat during the day and track it exactly with the aim of losing a bit of Festive weight. It’s addictive to the point where I found myself weighing out 3 little gem lettuce leaves the other day. It’s good as it helps to focus the mind when it comes to eating. Something which, otherwise, I’m absolutely woeful at. Portion sizes especially. I do like to eat. By adding your exercise into it as well it also allows you to subtract calories that have been burnt off. A simple but effective tool.

The Duplo tower

However, no sooner had we adopted this healthy healthy regime we were off it again as we headed up to Derbyshire for a weekend with some friends from school. This was our first cottaging experience for Lisa & I with this group. The majority of them I’d not seen since school until we all sat together and got involved in some pretty impressive drinking at the Wallace wedding in July last year. It was an ace weekend and followed a pattern I was kind of expecting: playing made up games, eating highly calorific foods, comparing notes on people that we used to know, talking nonsense and binge drinking. Right up my street. Sadly it was over too quickly but notable highlights were the impressive show of hands from attendees upon the question “who here has snogged Warren Soni?”, creating Billiooker – a snooker/pool/billiards based game, a fractious game of team Trivial pursuit which our team won handsomely (I got glared & sworn at for the entire game after swapping sides mid game – Kate) and the reverse Jenga. The reverse Jenga was an epic – even for spectators. Essentially it was the building of a tower made of Duplo blocks one by one by a team of 5. The one that laid the brick that finally broke the tower was the loser. It went on for a long time and got very high.

Sadly though these weekends go by too quickly as we’re back on the calorie scanning again now. God only knows what sort of totals I’d have reached if I’d counted this weekend.

The Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi: a ground England have never played at

England’s forthcoming tour to Dubai & Abu Dhabi to play Pakistan (first test beginning on January the 17th) is somewhat unchartered territory for the English team. England have only ever played two Twenty20 internationals in Dubai and they’ve never played in Abu Dhabi. A couple of players may have had a bit of experience with their county teams in pre season matches out there but other than that playing in the Emirates will be a completely new experience for the England squad. They may well be the number one test team at the minute but I think this test series could be really closely contested against a somewhat rejuvenated Pakistan team. Their decision to arrive in the Emirates four days prior to their hosts suggests that the England set up thinks so too.

No international team has toured Pakistan since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team bus back in 2009 hence the reason they’ve adopted the Emirates as their home base. Since moving their home games over there Pakistan have not lost a ‘home’ test match (playing 5, winning 1 & drawing 4). More interestingly since the 2010 England series (and the removal of the spot fixers) Pakistan have only lost one test home or away playing 12, winning 6, drawing 5 and losing a solitary test away to the West Indies in the summer just gone. A pretty good record. Pakistan have also played 5 tests in the last 10 weeks. 5 more than England.

Junaid Khan in action for Lancashire - summer 2011

Their resurgence seems to be a combination of getting rid of the spot fixers (that includes Teflon Akmal behind the stumps) and the individual performances of a side that seem relatively settled under the leadership of 37 year old skipper Misbah Ul-Haq. Since becoming captain for the South Africa Series in November 2010, batting at 5, he himself has averaged an impressive 75.76. Also impressing with the bat in that 12 match period has been a top four of Taufeeq Umar (3 centuries), Younis Khan (averaging 78.75), Azhar Ali (51.00) and all rounder Mohammed Hafeez who has succeeded in the much feted double of averaging more than 30 with the bat and less than 30 with the ball. To add to the batting they seem to have an abundance of bowling options similar to England’s. Pace wise they have the veteran right arm seamers Umar Gul & Aziaz Cheema (who has impressed since debuting only this year) to select from as well as two left arm seamers who have recently showed their potential in domestic cricket in England – Junaid Khan (Lancashire) & Wahab Riaz (Kent). Spinners Saeed Ajmal (53 wickets in his last 9 games) & Abdur Rehman (45 wickets in his last 10) have also had an excellent time of things recently.

Now these stats may be a bit skewed due to the fact that Pakistan haven’t been playing the best of sides over the course of the last 12 games. Of their opponents only South Africa feature in the top 4 sides in the world. It is also a relatively inexperienced side. Taking Umar Gul out of the equation their seam attack only has 15 test matches between them. However, this is what should make it such a fascinating series. Not the fact that it’s the first time the teams have met since the spot fixing scandal (I’m sure that EVERY newspaper article leading up to the series will mention this).England are currently the best team in the world. They are now playing a form team in a brand new environment. It should be good.

A telly

In a vein attempt to be productive I wrote a blog on cricket earlier. I must admit I didn’t start doing this until about 6pm meaning that productivity until this point (and admittedly afterwards too) was pretty minimal. It was a good pants day. Although Lisa & I were efficient enough to purchase a brand new telly on the internet which should be arriving over the course of the next few days.

My first proper pants day on Wednesday was followed by one on Thursday and one today. Prior to the holidays I’d envisaged a number of pants days but three back to back achieving absolutely nothing I hadn’t really expected. I thought said pants days would involve me reading, writing some blogs about sport and possibly watching one of a number of films I’ve purchased but not had chance to watch . Sadly, non of the above has really happened as I’ve been far more bone idle than expected. Even by my exceptional standards of idleness.

Until about 6pm today that is when I finally decided to write a blog on cricket. I love cricket and I love sport. This blog was intended to be part Shire nonsense, part sport blog. Of late it’s turned into 100% Shire nonsense so for those expecting that in the next blog then look away now. As it’s 100% about cricket. Something I hope to write a bit more on in the next few months. But we’ll see.

My plate of cheese

Today’s been the first day I’ve had a proper pants day this Christmas. When I say pants day I don’t mean a bad day I mean a day where I sit in my pants doing absolutely nothing but watching TV. I love pants days. Today’s pants day has seen me watch the 3^rd & 4^th tests of last year’s Ashes as well as watch highlights of the current Australia vs. India test series. I had a break for some cheese and a nap but other than that that’s all I’ve done. A category A day in my book.

The catalyst to today’s pants day was a combination of the TGCC Festive Walkabout and competing in the Ilmington 10k running race yesterday. I was encouraged to take part in the run by the Pritchard’s who were also taking part. I was diffident at best to the idea of participating whilst in the pub on preceding days and I only tentatively said yes to doing it 24 hours before. Put it this way I was as surprised as they were that I actually turned up as running over Yule usually just doesn’t happen. My hesitancy wasn’t just down to the drinking & eating binges of the season I’d also researched the course and noted that kilometres 1 to 4 were up a hill. It was a nightmare. But I got there in the end – 57m 35s to be precise. 8 minutes off my best but considering it was over Everest and during my feasting period I was pretty pleased. Gareth – who’d been on the pop the day before – did it in 47m 16s. The man is not human.

The run was tough but I was glad that I did it. Especially as it made me feel slightly less guilty about the binge drinking that took place on the evening for the TGCC Festive Walkabout. The fist TGCC Festive Walkabout took place last year as we had some, ahem, important business to attend to (installing Ashfield as Chairman). We then drank in every pub in Alcester to celebrate. This year we just did the latter and stuck to a rigid timetable. It was an unbridled success as 20+ Graftonites put far more concentration into succeeding at this than they would normally on a Saturday afternoon during the cricket season. Meeting @ 6.15pm, we spent half hour in each pub and followed the following route to enable us to take in the televised football:  Cross Keys, The Swan, White Lion, The Oak, The Dog & Partridge, The Tuns, The Bear, The Turk’s and the Hollybush. Other than being too inebriated to work a telephone (sorry Lisa & Matt Harvey) it was a success.

I do now ache from head to toe though. Whether that was the run or the ‘walkabout’ remains to be seen. Now i’m eating some more yellow food and having a beer. Mmmmm festive feeding.

At 2pm the boss whispered the words.. go on get yourself home and I literally leapt out of my chair flung the laptop into the bag and raced home. Not back at work until the 3rd of January. I say raced home I stopped to purchase another pork pie and a whole black pudding en route. We now have 3 pork pies, a whole shelf of cheese and 1 and a half black puddings in the fridge.#gout. I can’t wait to get stuck into that over the course of the next 10 days. I was so excited driving home that I actually clapped and exclaimed “YES” as I drove through Studley. That must’ve looked weird to any passers by.

Bring on 10 days of sitting, eating and drinking. Tidy.

What a low quality offering.. even by my standards. Still, i’ve done it with 5 minutes to spare. Ample time to prepare myself for hassling Buckle all night as he STILL doesn’t like cheese. Unbelievable. How can you not like cheese?

Highlights were limited though except for the conversation on the Geoff Lloyd podcast I listened to en route. It was laugh out loud funny mainly as it was to do with one of my favourite topics. Eating. Or more accurately, excessive eating. Listeners were asked to phone in with extraordinary feats of eating they’d either done or seen themselves. My personal favourite was from a lady talking about her brother who ate 18 roast potatoes on Christmas Day and was found about an hour later in the kitchen making beans on toast as he was still “a little bit peckish”. Genius.

It’s quite an apt topic actually as last week a friend of mine (Adam Setterfield – stand up and take a bow now) had a cheeseburger eating contest with his work colleague. They both purchased 12 each plus a double cheeseburger just in case they needed a tie breaker. I love that fact. The final count was a narrow 12-10 defeat. But what an effort. Something that Big Bob & I are going to have a go at in the New Year sometime I think.

My personal feats of eating are not so frequent these days unlike when I was at University. I was a hungry boy back then and whilst cooking my dinner I’d often make a couple of sandwiches (4 slices of bread) to keep me ticking by until it had cooked. To add to that eating one and a half 15” pizzas in one sitting was regulation. It still baffles me how I managed to gain 5 stone..

I’m not as good as I was but I still consider myself a good eater – probably not Champions League but certainly top 10. I’m probably the equivalent of Stoke City – not headline makers but always a consistent performer. Buffets are my strong point. My stacking technique ensures I accrue a large mass of food on the plate plus I implement a two in the hand one in the mouth policy as I shuffle along. This coupled with my second plate must be stacked higher than my first rule means that I’m a consistently good buffet-er.

I’ve also maintained that I could eat 20 cold sausages in one sitting. This is something I threatened to do at University but didn’t get around to it as I was too tight to buy the sausages myself. I’m still convinced I’d nail it. I can feel some New Year’s resolutions coming on…  mmmm eating.

*The official line. Click here for further info.

The screen I spend far too much of my time gawping at

Takes. Over. My. Life. For the last three years I’ve been completely obsessed with the official Premier League fantasy football game. It’s brilliant and has increased my enjoyment of watching football enormously. As a supporter of a non Premier League team I only had a passing interest in the Premier League until I entered a team at to the start of the 2009/2010 season when Milky set up a mini league for the cricket club. Now I read/watch/listen to as much as I can about it.

As a competitive man entering a team was both a dream and a nightmare as I’ve spent many an hour deliberating over my team when I should be doing something far more constructive. It’s also aided my petulence as I’ve had the opportunity to bite back enormously at the bating by others for schoolboy errors I’ve made. However, this year my team – FC Slippery Gizzards – is absolutely flying. Not only is it currently atop the Grafton mini league but it’s in the top 5,000 in the world (4,271 to be precise). Now this may not sound that great but there’s over 2.5million people that have entered this year. Seriously it’s one of my proudest achievments to date.*

It’s only weekday 17 though and there’s plenty of mileage left in this season. You don’t win a league at Christmas, you’re only as your next game, take each game as it comes etc etc. The thing with the league is that despite a bit of interest at the start it really only gets taken seriously by a small handful. It’s the beating of them that’s the most important. In our league it’s usually Winna (Ikea Meatballs), Powelly (Chamakh my bitch up) and Milky (Ask me to Prestatyn) that I’m always desperate to beat. This year we also have Big Bob Slatter (David Busst’s bust leg FC) and James Wall (AVB’s Index Finger) also in the mix at the top. I have 1,001 points at the minute but the others are within touching distance.

This week I made a cardinal sin but I *think* i’ve just about got away with it. I completely forgot to make any transfers or substitutions. I realised this about 15 minutes after the deadline. I was furious but I seem to have got away with it – mainly thanks to the man with a head like a baked been Wes Brown scoring his first goal in 3 years.Flukey bugger. Just the 21 more game weeks to go..

*It’s not. Really.