Just get it over with

Hello and welcome back to my blog

I might make it a rule from now on not to post my blog until AFTER an England vs Pakistan cricket match - just to be sure I don't miss something. If I had posted on Monday I would have missed the Ian Botham rant about Pakistan being a cancer on cricket and dealt with accordingly. One would have thought he would have learnt his lesson in the 1980s (when he played) about jumping to extreme positions when these two foes face each other (see Mike Gatting vs the Pakistan umpires etc). His words might have formed the ghost of an argument if they weren't a petty and obvious retort to Ijaz Butt of the PCB who passed on feelings in bookie circles that England had thrown the 3rd ODI of the current series
WHAT you might say, aren't Butt's comments just as ridiculous? Most definitely. First of all, I missed the chapter in the cricket manual where it says 'book makers are an acceptable source for accusations against other teams' and second, WHAT was the PCB Head doing talking to and then admitting to talking to book makers?
The whole business reeks of children throwing mud back and forth in a river bed of some kind with one team reacting, without thought of consequence, after a slight from the other; if I hear either board saying 'they started it...' It's hard to see who is keeping their head any more as even the players have chucked the dirt clods down and adopted simple physical aggression (Trott) instead. I hope that readers and the public in general are as sick of this as I am so in the interest of speeding up the descent to the bottom (so that the climb back to civility can begin) I present the following headlines/sound-bites:

The Don - Bradman or Corleone?
...accusations of match fixing have extended back to the 1940s now as new questions are asked of Donald Bradman's last innings (0) when just 4 runs would have given him a magical 100 average. Although Eric Hollies seems in the clear, the famously money-conscious/savvy Bradman faces renewed criticism from Catholic players...

Benaud and Worrell - the venture that went sour
There have been only TWO tied tests and the first one has come under increasing scrutiny (and the series in which it was played: 1960-61) as whistle-blowing bookmaker B*** L****, in an audio tape adjusted with a Victorian-nasal twang suggested that the two captains colluded to keep the match and the series exciting... ...involvement by Don Bradman has also been looked at but no clear evidence has come forward yet... ...one has to ask: did Worrell really die from leukemia or by more nefarious methods?

I could keep going but the sour taste in my mouth in concert with a retching sensation at the thought has stayed my pen. This is the bottom of the spiral that cricket finds itself in, so now it can begin the task of returning to respectability

Well that's it from here and I hope you join me again
It's good bye for now