Afghanistan desperate to wake up from fairy-tale run

England fan happy he's not supposed to care about ODI cricket
An England caught himself in the nick of time from lapsing into despondency over his team's poor showing in yet another World Cup by reminding himself that England fans don't care about ODI cricket.

"That was close!" admitted a relieved Paul Brown immediately after England's crushing defeat to Sri Lanka, which left them wallowing at the bottom of their table. "I was almost at the point of letting decades of pent-up frustration at our failures at World Cups get the better of me by shoving my hands violently into the pockets of my shorts and exhaling rather loudly through my nose, but I managed to remind myself that in the greater scheme of things, ODI cricket just doesn't count, at least not to English fans."

Brown said that having experienced the epiphany, he was then immediately able to relax and not give in to what he called "dangerous thoughts", such as why he had spent all that money coming to Australia in support of such a team, and whether Kevin Pietersen's presence in it might have made a difference after all.

"Honestly, I'm fine," he insisted, ignoring what appeared to be a violent twitch in his left cheek.

Warner reaches out to child he injured
David Warner has been in the news again, but this time for all the right reasons. After seeing that he had injured a little boy in the crowd, who was struck in the shoulder by one of Warner's numerous sixes during his innings against Afghanistan, the batsman made it a point to seek the little fella out after the game to check on how he was doing, and gift him a pair of batting gloves.

"Must be nice," said Joe Root upon hearing of the incident.

Federer to display Pakistan shirt next time
To appease butthurt Pakistan fans, Roger Federer has revealed that should India and Pakistan meet again in the World Cup, he will be sure to share a photo of him pulling a Pakistan shirt out of a box with a vaguely constipated look on his face, and not an India one.

Indian fans, however, have wasted no time taking to the internet to vent their outrage at the suggestion, with many going so far as to label Federer a "traitor" and a "hypocrite" for threatening to "bleed green" so soon after bleeding blue.

Federer responded to the allegations by cursing the day Sachin Tendulkar walked up to him at Wimbledon and introduced himself, and by extension the game of cricket, to him.

New Zealand on course for semi-final loss
After a strong showing in the first clutch of matches, and sitting pretty at the top of their group, New Zealand appear to be well on course to achieving an exit in the World Cup semi-finals.

"Fingers crossed we can do it, 'cos we've been playing really well so far," said the captain, Brendon McCullum. "I think it's safe to say, without wanting to appear overconfident, that we fully intend to be able to give our fans what they've been conditioned to want and expect of us."

Expectations of another brilliant World Cup campaign snuffed out by a catastrophic defeat to Pakistan or Australia in the semis have rekindled a love for the game among long time Black Caps supporters as well as helped to pull in new fans.

"We're backing New Zealand to go all the way to the semis this year," said Marie Cartwright, who like a lot of people suddenly filling stadiums across New Zealand whenever their team plays, is a relative newcomer to the game. "A lot of us have a really good feeling that this is the year that the boys are going to do us proud by finally coming home with the World Cup not quite won."

Tendulkar and the 25-team World Cup
Sachin Tendulkar has mooted the idea of a 25-team World Cup the next time the tournament is held. Tendulkar, after confirming that he hadn't in fact been smoking anything prior to making the statement, said that he wants the game to be "globalised as much as possible", and for cricket fans to be "as bored as much as possible".

The ICC for its part has taken his suggestion seriously, and has apparently already put together a crack team headed by Sunil Gavaskar, tasked with the express purpose of going on a world tour "not unlike the first explorers of yore" to find out whether as many as 25 countries even exist, let alone cricket-playing ones.

Afghanistan desperate to wake up from fairy-tale run
Afghanistan continued their fairy-tale run in top-flight cricket with a massive loss to Australia yesterday.

"People often use the words 'fairy tale' to describe our journey from a ragtag outfit to representing our country in the World Cup, but they have no idea just how true that is," said the captain, Mohammad Nabi.

"Truly, there are times when we literally feel like we are trapped inside a nightmare world straight out of a Grimm's story," he continued. "Take our bowlers against Australia, for example. Who can deny that Shapoor Zadran with his long hair and hapless, ineffective run-up didn't resemble Snow White running screaming from the huntsman? Or that our openers haven't at times resembled Hansel and Gretel at their most tormented, reduced to little more than living pieces of meat being ripened for the slaughter?

"So yeah, the story of Afghanistan cricket is a fairy tale, all right. We just hope to god we wake up from it soon."