Salman Butt takes solace in game of 'glorious uncertainties'

Batsman gets lost after bowler points wrong way to dressing room
A batsman who got a rude, geographically incorrect send-off from the bowler who'd just dismissed him ended up getting lost for days and almost starving to death as a result, according to reports. "Why would he knowingly point me in the wrong way?" asked the visibly stricken cricketer from his hospital bed, even as he was being administered intravenous fluids after finally making it back to the dressing room.

"The kid's lost a lot of body fluids," confirmed his coach. "He spent hours under the hot sun, trying to find his way back and had to subsist for a while on nuts, berries, and the odd stray earthworm he found in the outfield."

The bowler in question has been pulled up by the third umpire, and is likely to be found guilty of flouting the code of conduct which relates to "bowlers gesturing towards or showing the batsman the way to the pavilion in an obscene, offensive or incorrect manner, without providing him the basic courtesy of a map to find his way there."

Salman Butt takes solace in game of "glorious uncertainties"
Even as the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected an appeal against his ban from the game, an irrepressible Butt continued to revel in the "glorious uncertainties" that make cricket so great. "Looks like I won't get to play for another two and a half years, by which time I'll be 30," he said, before adding: "Isn't that glorious? Who could have predicted this a few years ago? God, I love this game!"

Butt interrupted himself to do a cartwheel out of joy at the sheer thrill of the unexpected, a trait celebrated as especially unique to cricket, and added: "I swear, one day you're on top of the world, captaining Pakistan and trying to make a little extra cash on the side, and the next, you're hauled into court for it. I'll say one thing about this game: It certainly keeps you on your toes!"

Delhi to hire performance coach for underperforming performance coach
Delhi Daredevils have decided to hire a performance coach to improve the performance of their underperforming performance coach for the remainder of this year's IPL. "It is hoped that Jeremy Snape, our performance coach, will benefit from having his own performance coach, and that the resulting double dose of performance conditioning will trickle down eventually to the rest of the team and help them perform better," confirmed the team's performance coach scouter, TA Sekhar.

"Performance coach," added Virender Sehwag, apropos of nothing.

Strategic timeouts really work
A recently conducted survey has revealed that ten out of ten advertisers agree that strategic timeouts in T20 matches work. "They do, they really, really work," confirmed one gruesomely enthusiastic advertising executive who had gelled and parted his hair on one side in what appeared to be a painfully affected imitation of his favorite Mad Men character.

"Our research shows that strategic timeouts have a 100% success rate: it has worked wonders for our clients' brand names, and sales of their products have risen sharply as a result of the extra bit of exposure.

"Don Draper would have approved," he added gratuitously.

Interestingly only nine out of ten IPL team captains agree that the strategic timeout is an arbitrarily imposed ruse to sell more ads on TV to catatonic viewers. Virat Kohli is the lone dissenting voice.

"I can't speak for the others, but here at Bangalore Royal Challengers we actually make optimum use of our strategic timeouts," he said. "We have products on TV directly owned by Mr Mallya, and I'm pretty much the face of most of them."

Kohli added, suddenly coy: "And isn't it a pretty face?" as he lovingly ran the back of his palm across his own cheek.

Matt Prior on display at Natural History Museum
Matt Prior has been omitted from the England limited-overs teams so that he can be the preserve of Test matches only. To celebrate, Prior has installed himself in a display case at the Museum of Natural History in London. If you wish to see him, you can find the wicketkeeper marinating in a giant mason jar filled with his own juices under the shadow of the giant Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the Dinosaurs Gallery.  There is no need to buy a ticket to see this exhibit, although if the upturned Three Lions cap on the floor in front of the exhibit is anything to go by, voluntary donations are apparently being accepted.

No pressure being Roger Binny's son - Stuart Binny
IPL rising star and India hopeful Stuart Binny has revealed that there is absolutely no pressure being the son of a former international player. "This is mainly because my father was Roger Binny," explained young Stuart.  "Though Dad was part of a couple of successful teams, he was a middling player at best, who understood his limitations and played well within them. I have absolutely no intention of doing the same."

County cricket season gets underway with Danny Boyle-directed extravaganza
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the start of the English county cricket season got underway with a bang recently. Not to be outdone by the IPL, the ECB has seemingly spared no expense in making this year's edition one to remember. A lavish opening ceremony bore an interesting minimalist look that was inspired by, according to artistic director Danny Boyle (hired to repeat his resounding success at the London Olympics opening ceremony), "the aching beauty of a desolate parking lot".

A brave crowd of county cricket diehards braved the miserable weather and gathered in their tens of thousands at a number of pubs around town to watch the ceremony on TV instead. "That Boyle really does know how to put on a show," remarked one man as the camera panned to show an eerily deserted stadium. "It's like that scene in 28 Days Later, when the whole of London was empty. I always wondered how he did that trick."