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Liam Dawson is the England cricketer who hasn’t been playing for England an awful lot recently. Most England fans would, on balance, feel happier if that situation continued – but only because if he does play, it means someone important has been injured.
England wanted a ‘utility’ squad member who could bowl a bit of spin and also bat. They had to choose between exciting Joe Denly, who bowls excitingly erratic leg-spin, and boring old Liam Dawson, who bowls boring old finger spin.
Denly’s leg-spin was a bit too excitingly erratic.
We’re pretty sure that Liam Dawson isn’t even Liam Dawson’s mum’s favourite England cricketer. There seems almost no chance he will play a game.
The more we think about this, the more we feel inexplicably confident that Liam Dawson will win the World Cup final for England with a smart catch and 30 off 40 balls in a tricky chase of 220.
Let us tell you about the other members of England’s World Cup squad
I have been keeping half-an-eye on the Pakistan v Afghanistan game this afternoon, so perhaps can be forgiven for thinking that one of the Afghanistan batsmen, who seemed to be getting towards 50 when I last looked, an hour or so later had regressed to twenty-something.
Hazratullah and Hashmatullah are, it transpires, two completely different batsmen. Who knew?
I note that the latter player merely has the word “Hashmat” on his back, which made me think of an equivalent of The Device, but for a resin-based herbal substance which might or might not originate from Afghanistan.
I should go lie down for a while.
Between the two of them, they won Afghanistan the game, so you can be forgiven for thinking at first glance that its the same person.
They need someone named Hazmatullah.
Good idea, DDKK – I’m sure that would make change the confusion quotient.
Thanks also for your forgiveness, Aditya, that means a lot to me. And I agree that both of those fellas can bat. Hazrat in a more gung-ho manner than Hashrat on the day, but that might simply have been due to the circumstances.
The more I see of Afghanistan the more impressed with them I become, frankly. And I’m thrilled that Middlesex have signed Mujeeb Ur Rahman for the T20 competition this year. I for one will take a little bit more interest in that comp as a result of that signing.
Tell us a bit about King Cricket from not the England World Cup Squad. Why is he telling us a lot about people recently? What were the chain of events that led to him writing a post on Liam Dawson? Liam Dawson. Surely, he should’ve had someone around that told him that at this point, he has to go lie down.
It’s the forever unpublished Joe Denly and David Willey posts we feel sorry for.
Well, I know you don’t do requests, but you could publish those, if you chose to…
At this rate they’ll both be in the squad… Morgan, Archer, Dawson, Wood injured. We’re only one Jason Roy back spasms from someone at the ECB having to make a very sheepish phone call to Alex Hales.
When I post a reply, I’m required to give my name, email, website and then there’s a little check box just above the ‘Post Comment’ button. I have tried posting with the box checked and unchecked and seen no difference in the posts themselves.
What does that checkbox do?
Good question. We’ve no idea. We didn’t put it there. It probably materialised when the Akismet anti-spam plug-in updated at some point.
I believe that, if you tick that box, you are consenting to the retention of cookies on that device, so the next time you post from the same device your name, e-mail and website are retained.
That’s what it seems to do for me, anyhow.
I never tick the box, having established that it isn’t necessary… but my details are retained anyway (I presume by my web browser)