Phillip Hughes in England

1. Send him home

2. Please do! Kent will have to face him in the FPT twice and presumably the T20 home and away too before the Aussies can claim him. Sod off, I say!

   (sorry Ged Ladd)

   I’m steadfastly ignoring the fact he is quite cute.

3. Fear not SarahCanterbury. Demon bowler Key will decimate his wicket.

4. don’t say decimate Ceci, or Spigs is going to get all anal and angry, and you’ll have to hide in the wall of a house, like Anne Frank, because you’ll be hiding from the linguistics nazi.

5. I think it’s all part of a master plan by the Wing Commander – lure him into a false sense of security with some hundreds and a big partnership, then start running him out for a series of ducks so his confidence is in tatters by the Ashes.

   It can’t fail!

6. Have you worked him out yet, Poms?

7. I don’t believe that Glamorgan, Scotland, Leciestershire or Surrey offer any bowling of the requisite calibre to enable a batsman to get used to what ought to be coming his way at test level. Not sure whether Kent, Somerset or Warwickshire do either.

   Personally I believe that Hughes’s presence is to Middlesex’s advantage (clearly) and possibly also England’s. He’s getting a good long look at English county dross – so what – we’re getting a good long look at the man himself.

   Of course he might devour England’s bowling in the Ashes, but don’t blame Middlesex if he does. He managed to devour the Saffers bowling (arguably the best pace attack in the world right now) without having a three match warm-up.

   I now claim that magnificent achievement – posting a response significantly longer than the piece to which I am responding. I have previous on this elsewhere……….

8. I have also now initiated a poll on this subject over at MTWD:

   http://www.cricketnetwork.co.uk/boards/read/s66.htm?67,10446672

9. I completely agree with you that England won’t lose The Ashes just because Hughes played here prior to the series for all the reasons you give (but then Kent should have had Clark here at the moment!).

   Don’t worry about the Kent bowling right now. Rather like the Willey wicket, our bowling has been decimated of late by injury. We may well be relying on Our Heroic Captain.

   Think I’ve used decimated correctly! Sure Spig will let me know if not, bless him!

10. Decimation, if I’m not much mistaken, was the practice of randomly executing one-in-ten of a military unit pour encourager les autres. The Romans, I believe, invented it; the Russians used it in their defence of Stalingrad in WWII.

    When matters of national importance are at stake, the practice can be considered acceptable, like when an opposing army, or “team”, lands on our shores. It works best if the unit in question is a multiple of ten. If not, then nearly a multiple of ten is fine also.

    Say, eleven.

    For example.

11. The English language is a funny thing… it rarely stays the same for very long.

    Here’s the OED definition of decimate (pay close attention to 4b.):

    [f. L. decim{amac}-re to take the tenth, f. decim-us tenth: see -ATE3. Cf. F. décimer (16th c.).]

    {dag}1. To exact a tenth or a tithe from; to tax to the amount of one-tenth. Obs. In Eng. Hist., see DECIMATION 1.

    {dag}2. To divide into tenths, divide decimally. Obs.

    3. Milit. To select by lot and put to death one in every ten of (a body of soldiers guilty of mutiny or other crime): a practice in the ancient Roman army, sometimes followed in later times.

    4. transf. a. To kill, destroy, or remove one in every ten of. b. rhetorically or loosely. To destroy or remove a large proportion of; to subject to severe loss, slaughter, or mortality.

    Hence {sm}decimated, {sm}decimating ppl. adjs.

12. christ alive

13. Christ got crucified – not decimated. Sort it out.

    And if you feel the urge to whinge about Philip Hughes just think of Ramps – it all counts for nothing.

    That said, most people on this blog are more upset about ‘decimation’ than Hughes.

14. Strauss scored more in the same innings = we will win the Ashes. Logical and simple.

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