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Of course you do. He played for England as recently as last month (against Ireland – what do you mean you don’t remember?). But do you remember what he was? You probably remember Tim Bresnan as a diligent and accurate third seamer, but once upon a time he was an all-rounder.
Maybe that’s generous. He was more accurately a lower order batsman who could make runs and when you see a 22-year-old like that, it’s natural to predict further improvement. However, the 2007 season in which he made three hundreds and averaged 48.5 remained a bizarre aberration until recently.
Having floated away from England’s Test team like a wiry-haired buoyancy aid, Bresnan had also sunk to number eight in Yorkshire’s batting line-up like a partially deflated wiry-haired buoyancy aid. It was from this position that he made 100 not out against Somerset last month – only the fourth first-class hundred of his career.
This week, he did it again, making 169 not out in a dementedly protracted partnership with Jonny Bairstow against Durham. At the age of 30, could Bresnan finally fulfil his promise and become an actual all-rounder?
We’re wishing him all the best – although not because he’s a loveable fatty, which is what you’ll no doubt assume. Now seems an appropriate time to restate our belief that he is no such thing and has in fact gained this reputation largely because of his abnormally round head. His big tree trunk arms may add to the impression as well, but he’s surprisingly fat-free. We have previously described him as being like a burly puma and cannot currently improve on that.
Bresnan’s a bull, maybe even a bison. Something bovine, definitely not feline.
More importantly, on the county cricket scene, it seems that there was a major moth incident at Lord’s yesterday…
…so major, it is even being described as a “gate”;
Mothgate.
https://audioboom.com/boos/3329688-mothgate-in-the-bbc-tms-box-at-lord-s
I’d be interested to know whether KC and others in The Kingdom feel that this particular incident warrants being a gate.
Bresnan is only 30?
I’m not sure how to feel about that.
Let’s go with disappointed and hungry.
It makes us feel tired, slightly sweaty and resentful of having to be indoors.
What is more more extraordinary is that he appears to have been 24 in 2007 and eight years on he is barely 30.
From the following clip I can see why KC thinks he looks like a burly puma.
https://youtu.be/6mzAMsvqBh0
There’s a case for saying we added the 2007 fact after we’d already written a paragraph about him being 24 back when he could bat. However, those who know us well will know that this is actually a fairly typical case of embarrassingly poor addition.
We’ll try and make a correction but will doubtless get even that wrong.
In some test playing nations (well, at least one) a temporal discrepancy of two years is a mere bagatelle.
Where’s your sense of creative accounting, KC?
This is slightly off the subject but has it been explained why the ECB has loaned 18.1 billion euros to Greece?
Whilst Ged is here please explain to me why this little story doesn’t work.
A rich businessman arrives with his staff at a hotel on a poor Greek island. Everyone on the island has debts they cannot meet. He explains to the hotel owner that he will be staying for a few days to assess the island as a tourist resort and he puts $5000 on the counter as a deposit.
As soon as he leaves the hotel owner goes to his supplier and pays him the $5000 he owes him, the supplier then goes to the farmer and pays him the $5000 he owes. The farmer goes to the local prostitute and pays her the $5000 he owes. She arrives at the hotel and pays the hotel owner the $5000 for use of his rooms.
A bit later the businessman comes back, says he doesn’t like the island, gets his deposit back and leaves.
Now no-one has any debts!
Good question (I may be slightly mad to answer this question on a cricket blog, albeit a terrific one – but in the spirit of cats looking disinterested here goes)- each if the parties in this instance (except the tourist) have net nil debts – ie. equal assets and liabilities. The prostitute/hotel/farmer have a net debt of zero – but there are issues because none of the parties have actual monetary consideration to pay off debts . The introduction of the tourist in this game allows for an easy solution. In real life, Giles Clarke has loaned Greece 18.1bn when it has no/scant assets (zither than it’s crumbling palaces).
Frankly the hotel is barking mad to have let it get to this stage. Could’ve easily sold its loan payable (from the pros) to the farmer in exchange of the loan receivable owing from supplier to farmer. Then could’ve netted off the supplier receivable and payable. QED no need for cash and for tourist. Simples.
I’m sure the icc champions trophy ranking formula is that elegant.
I mean the hotel could’ve sold its loan receivable in exchange for the supplier loan receivable from the farmer! Important to get that right else the hotel is conned
It doesn’t work because the farmer incurs further debt when he visits the prostitute.
The little story does work, Rus.
The islanders had a liquidity problem, not an insolvency problem. The businessman’s injection of cash (the deposit which he later withdraws) provides short term liquidity, which the islanders used to settle their debts with each other.
Amongst themselves, the islanders didn’t really have a problem before the businessman arrived. As he withdrew his deposit rather than spending actual external cash on the island, after the businessman leaves the island remains as poor as it was before.
But the islanders might now feel better because they have repaid their theoretical debts with each other.
I liked the Bresnan headline btw were we all supposed to say “No”?
My friends and I failed to recognise him warming up before a Trent Bridge test a few years back, because he was unaccountably not as fat as we had assumed. Later, Stuart Broad took a hat-trick,and England won. How is that a coincidence, eh?
You have friends?
Either you are being harsh or continuing the joke that Balladeer hasn’t got yet
I still don’t get that joke. And I stared at it a long time too. A very long time.
Glad to know I’m not alone.
Let’s put this to bed. It was a reference to Betteridge’s law of headlines which we’d referred the previous day.
Oh thank God. Or, thank KC, I suppose.
Thanks for that Montgomery. I’ll wait to see if Ged can weave any sardines into the equation. I was never happy about the explanation that the ones in tins/cans didn’t taste very good.
The idea behind the “trading sardines” story is that the increasingly rare tins of sardines in the early 1900’s became tokens for speculative trading rather than an actual commodity being traded for a purpose.
So when a trader decided to actually try one of the tins of sardines he had bought, they tasted awful because they had been traded well past their shelf life.
I don’t suppose that many memorabilia cricket bats would be much use to you on the field of play…
…he says, trying to get the subject away from The Price of Fish (now also available in paperback) and back onto cricket.
I would like to say thank you to Fred Grace, he was the one who made KC understand it.
My pleasure.
Ashes silly season continues apace. They’ve allowed Braddin to open his mouth again, which is silly enough: http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2015/content/story/892803.html
I hate him.
Harris is injured. In other news, bear spotted squatting in nearby forest.