The Heavy Ball

Sri Lanka Cricket has slammed the country's weather for scheduling a monsoon during the New Zealand tour after all six limited-overs matches were affected by rain. Three matches were abandoned without a result, while each of the other games was shortened significantly and gave a distinct advantage to the team batting second.

"I can't understand why the weather keeps having monsoons in November, when it knows that is the time of year when we play cricket in Sri Lanka," a senior SLC official said. "This tour was scheduled in 2008 and I'm staggered that we have run into problems again.

"You'd think that after what happened with the West Indies tour in 2010, the weather would have learnt its lesson and stopped scheduling the monsoon in November, but obviously it is completely incompetent and incapable of making even the simplest, most obvious, improvements."

The lack of context
Ramnaresh Sarwan has something to share with us.

English mystery spinner exposed
Euphoria at finding a rare English "mystery spinner" was cruelly aborted at ECB headquarters when it was revealed that the player in question drives a Ford Focus. "That just about scuppers his chances of being a mystery anything, let alone a spinner," said a spokesman for the board. "Everyone knows that to be seriously considered a mystery spinner, you should ideally be driving an Aston Martin. Hell, we would have even settled for a second-hand BMW with a well-concealed history of water damage. But a Ford Focus?" he sputtered in indignation. "And let this be a lesson to all budding mystery spinners out there," he added. "Please make your life decisions wisely. This isn't a ******* game."

Australia hoping cricket will emerge the real winner
Faced with the possibility of not winning it themselves, an insecure Australia are pinning their hopes on the game of cricket being the real winner of their series against South Africa. "If we can at least say that cricket eventually won in the end, we won't have to say that South Africa did," explained Michael Clarke. "Everyone knows that cricket is the real No. 1, anyway," he muttered unconvincingly while slowly rocking back and forth on the edge of his chair.

Batsmen to be run out by 1.6 village kilometres
If a BCCI-backed petition is approved, commentators working in Asia will be penalised for saying that a batsman has been run out by a "country mile". Instead, they will henceforth be required by law to state that the batsman has been run out by "1.6 village kilometres". "Why should we Asians be using a foreign unit of measurement in our analogies for hilarious run-outs?" said a deliciously tickled Bishan Singh Bedi. "I can't believe we didn't think of this before."

The top brains in Australian cricket have pulled off yet another magnificent espionage and intelligence-gathering coup, compiling a "dossier" on their South African opponents that will shock and stun cricket fans around the world. Here are some of the explosive highlights of this radical document.

Graeme Smith
Is the captain of the Test match side. But interestingly, not of the one-day side. We should look out for him making decisions and being in charge during the Tests but not so much in the ODIs. Likes to hit the ball. May be vulnerable to 95mph inswinging yorker.

Alviro Petersen
Is a Test opening batsman. Look to get him out bowled, caught or lbw. Finds batting harder against good bowling. Might not enjoy being repeatedly hit in the mouth by bumpers.

The tourist information service
Luke Wright's been away.

Excellent Tutorials (Chennai) takes great pleasure in announcing its latest intensive career-oriented course for aspiring, top-class school students all over the world. Starting next month all branches of our esteemed institution across the nation will offer:

Target: ECTR will be an intensive 12-day residential programme to help students who are Key Performers (KPs) but who have fallen out with the English cricket administrators. The course is designed to help KPs of any nationality ease their way back into the English cricketing establishment. This reintegration will be carried out through a three-phase programme, as described below:

The jetlag
Poor Phil Jaques is having a tough time.

Players laud life-saving security arrangements in Pakistan
Cricketers have praised the security arrangements for the two T20 matches held in Pakistan recently - the first time in three years that an international tournament had been held in the country.

"Security was well organised, efficient, and generous," said Sanath Jayasuriya, as Shahid Afridi nodded in agreement. "As a result of the good efforts of the government of Sindh and the conspicuous presence of the brave soldiers and policemen who risked their lives in safeguarding us, most of us felt reasonably well protected from Andre Nel."

Elephant in the room squeezes out England players
England players continue to struggle to ignore the elephant in the room. The pachyderm, which was discovered the same day that Kevin Pietersen's selection for the India tour was announced, has been making life difficult for the players by taking up three-fourths of the dressing room and dirtying the floor with its waste.

The political campaign
Shane Warne's got at least one policy.

Ravi Shastri continues to luxuriate in sound of own voice
After a short hiatus from the commentary box, Ravi Shastri is back and doing what he does best - deriving maximum sensual pleasure from the sound of his own voice. Colleagues, family members, and anyone within hearing distance found themselves left in the embarrassing position of wondering whether or not they were being an intrusive third wheel to the continuing love affair between the two. Shastri and his voice were last seen entering a luxury hotel together, allegedly on the advice of fellow commentators to "get a room".

T20 circus comes to South Africa
The T20 circus has arrived in South Africa, seemingly no sooner than it pulled up stakes in Sri Lanka. The streets of Johannesburg, as a result, presented a surreal scene, with clowns, people on stilts, and Harbhajan Singh wandering around, many of them eventually ending up in the city's many bars. One popular Sri Lankan clown, wearing what appeared to be a delightfully ridiculous wig, kept demonstrating to passersby how to throw a ball at three sticks while appearing all the while to be hurling a discus. Many others tried impressing the crowds that had gathered around them by spontaneously re-growing the hair on their scalps. The performers' leisure-time activities lasted only so long, however, as BCCI ringmasters came and whipped them all back into their hovels so they could get to work cleaning out the cheerleaders' cages and the sponsors' boxes in preparation for showtime.

Man wakes up remembering exactly who played last night
In unprecedented news, a man who had been at the stadium to watch one of the Champions League matches woke up the next morning remembering exactly who had played the night before. "Honey, I'm telling you, it was a match between the Highveld Lions and the Mumbai Indians," he declared to his frightened wife, who, upon checking the papers, realised that it was, sadly, true.