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One answer would be ‘because Michael Clarke’s injured’. If you’re wondering what’s wrong with Clarke, a Cricket Australia spokesman said:
“Michael Clarke has had his right hamstring assessed by team medical staff following the game and the team physiotherapist has confirmed that Michael has stiffness in the right hamstring.”
There’s a joke in there somewhere. Something like: “How many Australian medical professionals does it take to diagnose a stiff hamstring when someone complains that their hamstring feels stiff?”
Anyway, this isn’t the point. The point is that Shane Watson will become captain. We’ve said before that we have no real clue about captaincy. It’s a management job really and thankfully most of the tasks involved aren’t televised. We’re therefore somewhat in the dark about players’ suitability for the job.
But still. Shane Watson? Captains should be strong and resilient, yet Watson can’t even bear to retain his own body hair. Maybe that’s right though. Maybe Watson truly is the embodiment of contemporary Australia: Blonde, metrosexual, fragile, no longer troubling the speed gun and not especially good at Test cricket.
This deserves to be moved to the Manifesto section. In a few pithy words, it disses the fragility of the modern cricketer, the joke that is the modern day “injury” and “treatment” (really, cricketers are only a step away from Italian soccer players), and Shane Watson.
I only wish the names “Stuart Broad” and “Gautam Gambhir” were in there somewhere.
That you inferred those names is proof that we ticked all the boxes.
You have to like Watson. He represents everything that is good about modern cricket. Here are some career highlights:
His test batting average is 37
His high score is 126
He has 2 (count them) test centuries
He is a slightly better batsman in home matches (42) than away matches (34)
His test bowling average is 30
He’s taken 62 wickets in 6 playing years
He once took 19 (count them) wickets in a single year
In other words he is mediocre, bordering on mediocre. At his best he tends towards mediocrity, but on a bad day he can be infuriatingly mediocre. Mediocrity would be his middle name, if it weren’t for the fact that having mediocrity as a middle name would be unusual and interesting.
And he is one of the certainties to play for Australia! Name inked in on the card for future matches! Appointed captain, because he is a sure pick! As I said, you have to like what he represents about international cricket these days.
Your last line is slightly harsh. But the rest of it is fair enough.
Actually I take that back. He’s a tool.
Sorry about that. I had a momentary flash of Aussie sympathy. Won’t happen again.
On another note – unintentionally rude headline alert
http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan/content/current/story/604211.html
And a deeply disturbing article it is. Because apparently the people who know most about sport, about what it is and what it means, are overpaid Swiss lawyers. And what matters most is not fairness, or integrity, or honesty, it is that sport is a business pure-and-simple, and must therefore be subject to the general laws of restraint of trade. And if these Swiss lawyers conclude that Mr. Butt’s rights to earn a living through cricket – not his right to earn a living per se you understand, just his right to do it by playing cricket – have been infringed, then we’ll all have to watch him ruin every fucking cricket match he plays in just by his presence. Because what the people who actually pay for it all care about or want in their sport is next to fucking irrelevant compared to the rights of someone to make a living out of cheating us. You only have to look at what they decided about Dwayne Chambers to understand that. Maybe if he ever plays cricket in this country again we can all demand a ticket refund from the ECB, because what we paid for is watching cricket, not watching a cheating twat of the highest order take the piss.
Sorry about that.
Although wholeheatedly agree with your sentiment and admire your sweariness, this decision surely shouldn’t matter. Pakistan don’t play at home. His gaol sentence means that most countries wouldn’t give him a visa. Even if expensively suited gnomes say he can’t be a de jeure pariah, he’ll stay a de facto one? Now pop out and get some rotis. We can’t avoid fielding practice on an empty stomach.
Swiss lawyers? Gaol? De jeure? De facto? Rotis?
This isn’t QI, you know.
What do we want?
More cats being indifferent to cricket!
When do we want them?
At some point in the next few weeks!
Insert indifferent cat/cheetah joke here.
It’s a bit stupid for him to claim that he hasn’t been able to play ‘meaningful cricket since September 2010’. Hardly anybody believes that he was playing it before then.
Shane Watson is clearly conspicuously indifferent to test cricket. Hes also a sort of animal.
Just saying.
Admirable thought. But I would guess Watto lacks that feline grace to be included in the series though. But I am a man of science, and nothing is ruled out till it’s demonstrated to be false. So who amongst us will pick Shane Watson up and drop him from the tenth floor to check to see if he lands on his feet?
If we can get him into Lumley Castle, he might jump out voluntarily
Fixed result. Johnson or Siddle would have been far more entertaining choices.
The Shane Watson spooked in Lumley Castle story is still one of my favourites of all time.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/cricket/the-amp-gentlemens-game/2006/11/11/1162661948877.html
There are pictures of Goughie trying to add to that spooking but sadly I cannot find a Youtube of it – perhaps one of you is better at searching for these things than I am.
Best. Sledge. Everrrr.
I can go one better. Shane Watson in an ad for Brut. I can actually see how moisturised his pores are when he is evading a bouncer in slo-mo.
Someone really, really has to post a link. I, simply, can’t.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEwwwQAD9u
Hey Scott 2.0: I’m going to re-raise your Brut ad with Set Wet hair goo ad!
My hand must be the winner!
internets isn’t playing nice on my mobile
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=VEwwwQAD9ug&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DVEwwwQAD9ug
This highlights reel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfPIwTL8rGc) of the first NZ-England T20 opens with
“Eden Park, New Zealand’s sporting Mecca, is in mint condition as we hit the ground running with full momentum”
I thought of you
Is that Danny Morrison as well?
That’s a full house in some game we must be playing.
I think that’s not really a issue and you’re just, pardon me, exaggerating I think that it’s clear that when Micheal Clarke is not available then the only good option is Shane Watson because he is the vice captain of the team and the other option that one would consider George Bailey I think that’s tottaly wrong because he failed in the world T20 not as a batsman but as a captain.So I think that it’s fair to make Shane Watson captain.
Shane Watson is one of the legend cricketer in the cricket history and he is one of the final telanted player in Australian cricket team and he deserve for it to be a captain.
Do do that voodoo you do so well, KC!
0.1 86.6 mph, and Watson goes first ball! Short rising ball over the stumps, Watson tried to leave it but it bounce much more than he expected and couldn’t get the bat out of the way, played it down into the stumps 0/1
And importantly, it was Tino wot got ‘im.
The West Indian Twitterati went into full flow at that moment, no doubt.
Good bad or indifferent at Test cricket, and unpromising as he is as a captain, he’s still a better bet than Stuart Broad.
Watson is skipper due to the ‘depth’ in Aus cricket. So there.
Broad is a stretched Draco Malfoy. Watson looks more like one of Skeletor’s henchmen.