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Andrew Strauss has a central contract with England so the selectors want him to play. Unfortunately however, Andrew Strauss is doing his utmost to put his reselection in doubt.
Strauss was dropped for the tour of Sri Lanka after getting out for 27 in every single one of his previous 36 Test innings. Sensing that he would have to be brought back for the New Zealand tour due to that central contract, Strauss went over there early to play for Northern Districts. This perfect preparation didn’t quite go as planned as Strauss largely failed to score any runs whatsoever until a hundred in his final match.
Now, having made anything but a persuasive case, he’s back with England and opening in the warm-ups. Cue an innings of four off 25 balls and a dismissal through hitting his own wicket – excuse our politically incorrect language, but the spazziest means of getting out that there is.
Andrew Strauss is a good batsman, but not right now. It wouldn’t be fair to other players to bring him back into the side just because that was a plan that was made a few months back. Surely the plan revolved around Strauss getting back into form? We’re not convinced that’s happened.
As it stands, there’s a fair weight of evidence that Andrew Strauss is in no fit state to open the batting for England in a Test match. He looks very much like a man trying to get out in every way imaginable – and in a few ways that aren’t.
In the same warm-up match, Alastair Cook hit 85. Did anyone else notice that he did this off 81 balls?
OMG I was just in Burger King in Putney (the one opposite the station) and Andrew Strauss was in there in a purple Prefab Sprout t shirt. And right, he goes up to EVERYONE and says do you reckon Paddy Macaloon is the King of Rock and Roll? And everyone is a bit nervous cos he has this MENTAL look in his eyes, like he would pop you if you said no Paddy Macaloon wasn’t the King of Rock and Roll or something yeah? so everyone is nodding and going, yeah, yeah, I reckon Paddy Macaloon probably is the King of Rock and Roll, yeah, of course.
And the he goes NUTS. Starts flipping peoples burgers on to the floor and stuff and he says NO THATS MY POINT. Everyone is always going on about From Langley Park To Memphis. He goes that the real Paddy Macaloon masterpiece is CLEARLY Jordan the Comeback.
So everyone starts going, no like, he is the King of Rock and Roll and everything but Jordan the comeback is his masterpiece really. And Andrew Strauss goes. I don’t BELIEVE you. Your’e just saying that. You don’t MEAN it. Its all BOLLOCKS!
Then he won’t let anyone out. He’s just standing by the door pretending he’s holding a cricket bat (he wasn’t) And then he is saying TELL ME THE TRACK LISTING FOR JORDAN THE COMEBACK over and over. And cos everyone was dead scared and nervous and cos it’s a 19 track album people kept just getting one track out of place and he went mental all over again.
Then the Burger King manager sent someone out the back door to HMV in the high street to buy Jordan the Comeback. Then when he got back they put it on this lads cd player and put that on the front counter and played it. When Strauss heard the opening drum roll of Looking for Atlantis he just knelt down and started crying yeah? and everyone walked quietly past him and left.
It was MENTAL.
Please play Shah and not Strauss. Please
Comment of the year, Stacey Dixon.
The full title of that award is of course ‘longest comment of the year’.
I had a friend at school who was related to Paddy Macaloon. He wasn’t really a cricket fan.
Anyway, I’ve heard that Owais Shah vastly prefers the ‘Steve McQueen’ album (or ‘Two Weels Good’, as it was known in the US).
Peter Moores refused to comment publicly, but it is rumoured that he generally feels the best band of the early 80’s to be The Jam.
Im 28, i have never heard of Paddy Macaloon. But I still enjoyed the ramblings of Stacey Dixon, nonetheless!
It’s the effort Stacy’s put in I think we have to applaud.
Most of the rest of us struggle with more than a couple of sentences, and then only because there’s nothing decent on the TV