If you’ve got a picture of an animal being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, please send it to king@kingcricket.co.uk.
Professor Colin Abernathy writes:
I was going simply to offer this picture of my cat, Sir David Cattenborough, being conspicuously indifferent to Virat Kohli’s 50 in the 3rd Test [v England last summer], on a window ledge in Oakland, California (where we [were] staying)…
… when I came across this picture of said cat being conspicuously interested in the women’s Hundred in Washington, DC (where we live)…
Some hypotheses:
- The women’s Hundred was a resounding success for the ECB’s untapped feline market
- Cats don’t have the attention for Test cricket
- Cats respect Amy Jones as an extremely good cricketer
- Something about the experience of flying across America affects cats’ cricket-format preferences
Please write more about Matthew Hayden.
England’s apparent XI for the tour match:
1. Crawley
2. AZ Lees
3. Root (cpt)
4. Lawrence
5. Stokes (come on, switch him to #6)
6. Bairstow (come on, switch him to #5)
7. Foakes (wk)
8. Woakes
9. Overton
10. Wood
11. Robinson
Wonderful pictures and fascinating hypotheses, Professor.
May I add an hypothesis, by noting that the television set in the indifference picture is so high above the feline eye-line that it is possible that viewing on that occasion was a physical impossibility for Sir David Cattenborough. Contrast with the near perfect positioning of appropriate seating and the television set in the second picture.
I do like your first and third hypothesis, which are not mutually exclusive from each other, nor in either case from my hypothesis.
It is possible that Sir David Cattenborough judges cricketers not by the extent of their skills but by the content of their character. Having surmised Kohli to be naught but a foul-mouthed nincompoop, he has summarily rejected him favouring the warm sun instead.
D’you know, I think this argument has legs. (Four, at least.) He certainly has heard me bemoaning Kohli’s frequent lapses in on-field decency, almost inevitably in the same tone of voice in which I entreat him to Get Off The Bloody Dining Table. I can confirm, moreover, that recently he tried to eat a red (commemorative Kent CCC) cricket ball, so it seems at least that he understands that the longer form is ultimately more satisfying.
We need a spreadsheet for all these hypotheses.
Interested to know the extent to which they all hold for the wider feline community as well.
So that decision to drop Branderson is going well.