Samit Patel in ‘unacceptable level of fitness’ shocker

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The ECB have released a statement announcing that Samit Patel has been dropped from England’s one-day squad. We’ll paraphrase for you:

Samit Patel is fat.

We’re glad our employers don’t make press releases about the personal flaws that affect our work.

It would be disconcerting to open a newspaper and find an article about how we only ever put in the bare minimum effort and frequently waste time daydreaming about flamingos playing Connect 4.

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27 comments

  1. I’m more disconcerted by who’s been called up in his place – Gareth Batty. He’s not even that good for his county!

  2. This weight based discrimination!

    What does weight have to do with executing cricket skills anyway??

    yes, maybe you won’t be fucking Shoaib Akhtar, but fast bowlers break down faster than “third-hand” cars and more often.

    Being fat never stopped some of the best batsmen in the game, and Warne showed that twirling your fingers and wrists had nothing to do with how many six packs you had on your abs (as against in them). Plus fat people make great slip fielders. Ask Dwayne Leverock.

    It is deplorable that when all other discriminatory barriers are falling everywhere, cricket goes about raising them on grounds of “fitness”.

  3. are these the same people that entered into a contract with jaffa cakes? they can hardly blame the players when they choose to endorse their sponsors products.

  4. he is not fat! if anything, he’s a teensy bt cuddly. but since when did being a teensy bit cuddly prevent anyone playing cricket? What IS this body fascism? Humph.

  5. He just scored a 100 for the Lions too, down here in the land of Jesse Ryder, imagine how many runs he could have got if he was fit.

  6. Surely the paraphrase is, in effect:

    “Samit Patel does not do what he is told”.

    His portly quality is a bi-product of that.

  7. Being fat does not mean one can’t be a good cricketer.
    Inzzy,Merv and great W.C Grace spring to mind.
    Rather than dropping Samit they should consider sending him to a fat farm [sorry, can’t think of an alternative term] and get him fit.

  8. I think he should quit cricket and become a 1920s american ganster. Fat Sam.

    Things are not going well for Fat Sam, he made a big thing about going for the IPL but did not get picked.

  9. We hadn’t really noticed that, but we forced one of our mates to watch some of the last Test with us and he kept referring to Sidebottom as ‘the fat one’.

  10. I want to see what flamingos playing Connect 4 would look like. I am sure someone who reads this blog enjoys illustrating such moments with a careful use of photoshop. Ceci…?

  11. this is a joke to be honest! clearly has been picked on, like sidebottom was fit enough to play in the last test!!
    and however fitter batty is than samit, batty wouldnt even do half the job!! this is cricket, samit just scored 100 for the lions, what more do coaches want than see their players performing! i feel he was an easy target! just goes to show why england will never be a top team, by leaving players of his talent out!

  12. Brilliant – thank you so much. I thought it’d look a bit like that but in reality, it is so much better. Is that what you dream about KC?

  13. It’s less romantic and there’s more neck stretching involved because the Connect 4’s bigger, but basically, yes.

  14. The Times has an article today that compares Rob Key with Grace, Armstrong, Millburn and Botham – rare company indeed.

    http://timesonline.typepad.com/line_and_length/2009/03/tubby-or-not-tu.html

    (I’d have liked there to have been a bit more surprise for people when they clicked on the link, but I’ve never understood how to hide hyperlinks in text, and the last part of the URL kind of gives it away. Still, persumably a boycott of the Times is in order.)

  15. I think he resembles an Asian Darren Gough in that picture from the Sun. He was always ‘a bit fat’ but it never seemed to hinder his career. I reckon the fittest Goughie ever got was on Strictly Come Dancing!

    That said, surely the point about Patel is that they said to him, ‘you’re not fit enough’ ages ago, then he got fatter! A bit dozy of him, even if he is a talented cricketer.

  16. …as opposed to what happened when the SL cricket management told Arjuna Ranatunga that he was too fat and dropped him.

    I seem to remember some sort of senior players revolt! Probably calmed down with a few Mars bars, mind…

  17. Mahinda, your comment reminded me of a couple of classic sledges from Ian Healey:

    Ian Healy once became frustrated with an overweight batsman from a South
    African provincial side who seemed not the least interested in
    scoring runs. Eventually Healy called to the bowler: “Why don’t we put a
    Mars bar on a good length to see if we can lure him out of his crease?”

    During a WSC final at the SCG where the game had been shortened due to
    rain
    and the atmosphere was running at about 95% humidity a very
    exhausted Arjuna Ranatunga appealed that he had “sprained” something. He
    duly asked the umpire for a runner. As clear as a bell through the effects
    mic you heard Healey’s legendary reply “you don’t get a runner for being
    an
    overweight, unfit, fat cunt”.

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