Posted by Look, we’re not an entomologist and grainy, low quality social media footage isn’t helping us here. All we know is a flapping insect tried to run Zak Crawley out, only for Sajid Khan to get to the stumps first, where he made a right royal hash of things.
You think we’re kidding, but we are not kidding. The images below aren’t the clearest when viewed as stills, but you can clearly see the blighter fluttering about in the footage.
What happened was: Ben Duckett gently paffed Sajid Khan into the leg side, Zak Crawley ran halfway to the other end and then noticed Duckett was saying no. At this point he whirled around and headed back to the non-striker’s end, along with the ball and also, less predictably, a butterfly.
On the replay, the butterfly enters the frame from the left.
At this point, Sajid hasn’t ballsed anything up.
The butterfly then makes what we’re unfortunately going to refer to as a ‘beeline’ towards the top of off stump.
We can’t know this for certain, but we believe that the butterfly (which is clearly Pakistani because it is in Pakistan) immediately sensed that Sajid was not to be trusted to secure an easy run-out and therefore set out to intervene.
However, in this next shot, we can see that it sadly arrived too late and therefore failed in its mission.
At this point, none of batter, ball or butterfly have arrived and yet hapless Sajid has already broken the stumps.
We then see how the zinging of the second bail compels the butterfly to take evasive manoeuvres.
Disgusted with the standard of Sajid’s fielding, the butterfly then charts a new course away from the stumps.
Sajid, meanwhile, celebrates – seemingly unaware of a modern phenomenon known as “the TV replay” which will clearly and repeatedly display his incompetence in very slow motion.
While the butterfly may have felt deflated at being unable to prevent this catastrophe, it can perhaps comfort itself that it did have a positive impact for Pakistan.
Sajid’s encounter with it apparently inspired him to undertake a metamorphosis of his own: not too long after this moment, he emerged from the cocoon of fielding incompetence as a player capable of dismissing England’s entire middle order.
Must be pretty hard to get out of the cocoon of incompetence, if you’re incompetent.
Well that’s precisely why you stay in it until you’ve metaphorphosised.
Alex Hartley on TMS said it was a moth.
Perfectly happy to defer to Hartley’s entomological expertise.
Nah, looks like a Common Bluebottle butterfly (I say this like I know, but honestly it’s the confidence born of literally five minutes on Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphium_sarpedon
Well that’s five minutes more than most of us invested.
Now happy to defer to Lev’s entomological expertise.
Isn’t it racist to assume that the butterfly/moth/Lepidoptera was Pakistani just because it was in Pakistan?
Just a statistical likelihood. They only live a fortnight, so rarely travel too far.
Wikipedia has an entire article on Lepidoptera migration.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidoptera_migration
Well this puts a different slant on things. Was this potentially sabotage from a tiny member of the Barmy Army?
Perhaps the moth had flown out of a dusty old copy of ‘Boycott on Batting’, mistakenly packed in Harry Brook’s kitbag.
You’re convinced it was a moth, aren’t you?
It’s a strange hill to die on, but we all have our red lines.
To put to death all stringy allusions to the identity of the insect, I, as a professional entomologist, shall put to rest all conjecture.
The insect is clearly a butterfly, so KC’s identification skills are laudable. Judging by ‘jizz’, an RAF colloquialism and subsequently a birding term to describe general appearance and behaviour, it appears to be a Nymphalid (readers may be familiar with Red Admirals and Peacocks that belong to the same family). Of the Pakistani Nymphalids, and indeed butterflies in general, it very strongly resembles a nawab sp., Polyura sp. It could be a Common Nawab Polyura athamas for example. However, I am not overly familiar with the distribution and habitat requirements of Polyura in eastern Pakistan, and some species are similar in appearance when seen c.100 metres away, so I shall just limit my identification skills to genus.
Please note that in accordance to English grammar and scientific nomenclature, the latin (scientific) names should be italicized, but the comments section tools are lacking so I am unable to be completely grammatically correct.
Are you sure they’re lacking?
Oh it works! In case we have somehow offended the butterflies, and in revenge they start interfering with our work tasks too, I’ll write it as ’twas intended: Polyura. Once correctly italicised, it no longer looks so much like the brand name for a plastics manufacturer. I hope the butterflies are appeased.
(Some HTML tags work, in case you’re wondering.)