The Heavy Ball

Michael Clarke called for silence. The noise in the Australian dressing room did not die down. From his locker, Michael grabbed a large carton full of shampoo bottles - he was the face and hair of a major cosmetics brand in certain limited Oceanic territories and could get as much product as he wanted. Free. He allowed himself a brief moment to drink that little fact in. He was worth it, no matter what those old farts with their blazers and their moustaches and their tired, volume-less hair said. They were looking at a three-time Best Moisturised Australian Sportsman.

A three-time Best Moisturised Australian Sportsman who was now a leader, a shaper of destinies. He would mould this team the way Hi-Performance No Frizz Putty could mould a style that's rugged enough for the sports field but funky enough for fooling around with a hot babe afterwards.

A hot babe afterwards. A sudden, stabbing thought of headlines past, headlines from a perfect, long ago time: "The Australian Posh and Becks." "Blonde on Blonde." "Jeez Alf, I Can't Tell Which One's the Sheila." He drew his breath in sharply, the same hollow, watery feeling in his guts he got when he wrote out the batting order with Smith, S at No. 6. He shook the feeling away.

The retirement
Is Kevin Pietersen keeping himself busy since he retired from one-day internationals?

It has been cause for much melancholy and frustration among those of us who still care deeply about the game that we have to helplessly and repeatedly bear witness to the wanton besmirching of the BCCI and its good works. I refer, of course, to the IPL. Any excuse will do these days to find fault with this noble modern-day institution, often made in the full knowledge that without it the game would be a rather pale and sickly shadow of its healthily avaricious modern-day avatar.

The latest to have caught the jealous attention of cynics, naysayers, and other people paid by Tony Greig is the number of IPL teams featured in the upcoming edition of the Champions League. Granted, having teams from just one league alone make up almost half of those vying for the Champions League is a tad controversial. Which is why I propose the following solution, a proposition so elegant and obviously simple as to be almost silly to have it stated so bluntly: Why stop at four? Why shouldn't all the teams featuring in the Champions League be from the IPL? We only have to look towards America, that bastion of all things progressive and forward-thinking, to remind ourselves that it is even possible to have a World Series made up of teams from just one country.

I invite you to consider the following arguments in favour of this plan and see for yourselves the beauty of its logic, and how, ultimately, we all stand to gain from an all-IPL Champions League:

"Do you know Major," said Dessie, my long-time Indian cohabitant, as we stood in the rain at Edgbaston. "I rather think the world might be a better place altogether if Birmingham were to be entirely covered over."

I mulled. We had forcibly persuaded Nick Knight to lend us an umbrella and a Sky-branded sou'wester for Dessie - I myself have lived too well and too long to fit into anything belonging to the lissom former Warwickshire one-day specialist - but were nevertheless feeling decidedly damp and fed-up. The scene on the outfield was dispiriting. There was a sound of sobbing and wailing from the Warwickshire commercial offices. Graeme Swann was attempting to make an underwater documentary. Mitchell Johnson had somehow got himself trapped under a hover cover and the Australian leadership group was debating how, and indeed if, they should rescue him.

Dessie outlined his plan. A large glass dome would be erected over the entire city of Birmingham, meaning that rain-ruined cricket would be a thing of the past. "It would also keep the ghastly inhabitants in one controlled area," mused Dessie, but I baulked at that. I didn't serve for Queen and Country (Territorials) and give Diego and his mates a bloody good hiding in a support role (First Royal Caterers, Devon) so that Dessie could implement that sort of fascist master plan in the West Midlands. I suggested instead some sort of checkpoint whereby Birminghamists (as I understand they are colloquially known) could apply for a 24-hour pass to visit the rest of the country, providing all their papers were in order and they didn't speak too loudly.

The cry for help
Kevin Pietersen is looking forward to the many Ashes series that are coming up.

China objects to "chinaman"
Well, it has finally happened. China has protested against the use of the term "chinaman" to describe slow left-arm bowling of a certain ilk. "It's orientalism at its most insidious," said the president of the Chinese Cricket Association. "Just because a West Indian with Chinese blood was the first to bowl something exotic and otherworldly doesn't mean you have to call it that. Hell, we don't call the switch hit the 'Kolpak', do we?"

Pregnant silence gives birth to healthy, if guttural, utterance
The pregnant silence that existed between West Indies coach Ottis Gibson and Chris Gayle has finally given birth to a guttural utterance, which, according to reports, appears to be have been made in rude health. The silence, after months of protracted labor, finally delivered towards the end of the one-off T20 against England, when Gayle returned to the pavilion after scoring 2. In the interests of privacy, the words themselves have been kept a secret, but rumour has it that they are triplets, and that the first letters of each add up to FML.

BCCI can't afford DRS
The BCCI has revealed that the reason they are dead set against the DRS is because they simply cannot afford it.

The rehabilitation
Matt Prior's injured.

Dessie and I spent the day at Trent Bridge. We went in fancy dress, partly to enter into the spirit of the occasion, and partly because Dessie pointed out that being identified at a T20 match could compromise my position on the select committee of the International Coalition to Stamp Out Short-Form Cricket. If wanting to preserve the sanctity of Test cricket while also enjoying watching cheerleaders of both genders gyrating around in their tight-fitting official ECB cagoules makes me a hypocrite, then so be it. However, some of the other board members of the international coalition are not as morally fluid as myself; Michael Holding threatened me in no uncertain terms when I was photographed enjoying a ham and mustard sandwich with Norma Major at a rain-affected Friends' Life game at Northampton. All things considered, fancy dress was the only sensible option.

I dressed as David Lloyd George, as is my custom at any costume party. Dessie went as the late pornographic video actress Linda Lovelace. It is a sad reflection on today's youth, desensitised and spoiled by the seemingly limitless supply of home-produced smut as they are, that the entire crowd failed to identify Dessie's costume homage to a really first-rank adult performer. That my own outfit met with widespread bemusement is yet further evidence of a) the creeping barbarism of widespread historical ignorance that is sweeping this country and that b) the Wales in the "England and Wales cricket board" is mere lip service. While not myself a Welshman, I identify with them as I do all oppressed peoples: the poor, the deaf, foreigners in general.

Dessie and I have held a joint account at Nat West for many years now - we initially moved our banking to them in the early 1980s to take advantage of their excellent amusing ceramic piggy banks - and were able to gain entry into a sponsors' jolly area at Trent Bridge.

The performance
The bench is cooling and Scott Styris wants Stephen Fleming to know about it.

Tanvir flops at social dance event
Pakistan weird-arm fast bowler Sohail Tanvir embarrassed himself at a social function held for the touring team in Colombo recently, by constantly stepping on the toes of his dance partner, one Ms Shirali Karunatilaka. "It was terrible," said the distressed woman. "We were trying to slow-dance, but there was just no rhythm. Something was off. It was like he was leading with the wrong foot or something…"

Gayle mourns loss of father figure
Many in the West Indies team are mourning the jailing of Texas kajillionaire Allen Stanford for fraud. "He was like the sugar daddy I never had," said an emotional Chris Gayle on Father's Day. "You have to understand that as a kid growing up in the rough-and-tumble streets of Jamaica, there was no one I had to look up to who was holding out a platter of an easy million in cold, hard cash," explained Gayle. "A lot of kids in the Caribbean grow up without the kinds of opportunities I have been lucky enough to have. And by God, I have Mr Stanford to thank for that."

Corridor of uncertainty disappearing, warn scientists
The corridor of uncertainty, a fabled and endangered strip of pitch located somewhere around the batsman's off stump, is in danger of being lost altogether, warn concerned scientists. "The advent of T20 and the constant tinkering with the rules to endlessly suit batsmen over bowlers are chiefly responsible for this environmental and mental disaster," said a researcher from the ubiquitous University of Western Australia.