Posted by Sometimes we really feel for Ishant Sharma. Whenever we see him, he appears to be bowling on a flat pitch in a one-day international with the batsmen going hell-for-leather and fielding restricitions in place. In reality, that isn’t the only time we see him bowl. It just feels like it is.
It’s a bit like being a mole in a living room. You’re bloody marvellous at burrowing around underground, but sat there on the carpet, everyone just thinks you’re useless. If they’re generous, they pat their knee for you to come and sit on them, but with your short-arse back legs, you can’t jump up.
They look at you sadly as you blunder around with your crap eyesight, bumping into things, occasionally making a futile attempt to scrabble at the floor. Someone sneers at you and says: “Ugh, look at you with your disgusting extra thumb.”
But put you outside and you’re away. You might have lost all confidence in your ability to dig, but it’s still there. You just need to rediscover it. The dog gets filthy digging a shallow hole; the cat digs an even shallower hole, craps in it and then fills it in again. Suddenly everyone realises that there are certain jobs for which the mole is well suited – it’s just that you’ve just been spending all of your time in the wrong environment.
Come on, KC, give us some credit for knowing our own language. We know what the “mole in a living room” metaphor means without the lengthy explanation. You wouldn’t use three paragraphs to explain what you mean by “Tremlett is as big as a house”, so why do the same for the old “mole in a living room” saw. Only the other day, I heard Stephen Hawking on the bus telling Louie Spence that Albert Einstein doing Quantum Theory was “like a mole in yer living room, guv’nor”, and I think we surely all understand what he meant.
I enjoyed those three paragraphs, KC.
Don’t let Bert bully you. He’s like a bull in a china shop sometimes…
…let me explain what that metaphor means…
Does it mean “conscious of not spending too much on a ceramic sculpture of a cow that while beautiful and somewhat alluring, you know won’t survive life in a field in Derbyshire for very long”?
I think you have a distorted view of short-arses.
It’s because they’re so far beneath us and we’re as short-sighted as a mole.
So… Ishant did something good? Was he playing cricket or has he finally figured out that he was meant to be a high jumper all?
He was wearing a high jumper.
Che Pujara is the big dog in the living room.
…while Virat Koli is the snappy little dog around your heels…
A cat we grew up with once brought in 4 moles in one day. One was found in a shoe. Another suddenly emerged from under the sofa, shuffling across the living room; my mum caught it in an empty Pringles tin.
Fitting, Miriam. Derek Pringle spent his whole playing career being the mole in the living room…
…come to think of it, he still hasn’t quite found his role in the cricketing world….