In which direction does your cricketing moral compass point? © Getty Images

Welcome to the Official Confectionery Stall Cricketing Morality Challenge, following on from Andrew Strauss actions in the Champions Trophy – first recalling Angelo Mathews like a benevolent shepherd allowing a naughty fox one more chance to prove he can cohabit with your flock, then spurning Graeme Smith’s supplication for a runner like Henry VIII definitively telling Anne Boleyn that it was over for good because he didn’t go for women without heads, if I may use two largely inaccurate similes. I now give you the opportunity to find out the direction in which your cricketing moral compass points. Will it be north, towards the good of cricket and humankind, or south, towards 'win at all costs and damn the consequences'?

SCENARIO 1

It is the final over of a unfeasibly crucial limited-overs match. Your team needs four runs to win with just one measly wicket remaining. The opposition’s star fast bowler, who has taken five for 15 from nine overs of helmet-clattering fury, is walking back to his mark. All the other main bowlers have completed their allocation. No one else on the fielding team knows how to bowl. As the bowler turns at the end of his run-up and prepares to run in, you notice that a man-eating bear has escaped from the crowd and is charging up behind him. You realise that your chances of victory would be greatly enhanced by the fast bowler being eaten by the bear. Do you alert him to the impending danger?

	Andrew Strauss played the good cop in recalling Angelo Mathews after a mid-pitch collision led to a run-out © Getty Images

In the all-you-can-stomach fashion of modern cricket, no sooner has one major (or, more appropriately, quite major) tournament been whisked off your plate, than another is slopped onto it. The Champions Trophy left the customer neither wanting more, nor regretting his meal choice. It was an adequate spaghetti Bolognese of a tournament, befitting the current adequacy of international cricket. The fleeting hope of England fluking a major one-day trophy was snuffed out like the cheap imitation candle it was. Australia were excellent – the divots in their scalps from the head scratching they must have endured over how they lost the Ashes must be reaching close to skull level.

The absence of so many top players from all or some of the competition left it appearing a little mundane, and the fact that a new-look Australia won their semi-final and final so easily raised questions about the overall standard and depth of the world game. This year’s ICC World XIs are not exactly replete with must-see legends of the sport. A generation of modern greats has been gradually leaving the game in recent years – the new as-yet-unspectacular generation of cricketers understandably feels a little pedestrian by comparison.

For Mitchell Johnson to be named cricketer of the year, having flunked his biggest exam, shows that that the cupboard of cricketing greatness is largely bare. Paul Harris is rated the seventh best bowler on the planet in the ICC Test rankings. Yes, he is a steady performer, underrated by much of the cricket media, unfairly lampooned by English commentators in 2008. But the seventh best in the world? If Harris was playing an impromptu game in the street outside your house, would you watch? You might take a peek through the window, but you probably wouldn’t actually go outside.

Ten years ago the top eight bowlers in the rankings were, in order, Donald, Pollock, McGrath, Ambrose, Murali, Walsh, Kumble and Akram. All greats of the game, all bar Kumble averaging in the mid-to-low 20s, all bowlers who made batsmen pick nervously at their lucky omelette on the first morning of a Test.

This week, the top eight are: Steyn, Murali, Johnson, Ntini, Harbhajan, Clark, Harris and Zaheer. All good bowlers, but today’s batsmen wolf their omelettes down with relative confidence.

The batting (perhaps understandably) is in better shape, but to illustrate the lack of invigorating young blood being transfused into cricket, only one of the top 30-ranked Test batsmen is under the age of 25 (number 27, Alistair Cook, another who is not the kind of player to cause turnstiles sleepless nights). Perhaps more revealingly, only nine of the top 30 are under the age of 30, and just five have made their debuts since the start of 2005.

At some point, if time, work and wife permit, I will see how this compares with previous points in cricketing history – perhaps this is not unusual, perhaps it is just a slight quirk, but it seems to me that cricket urgently needs some new world stars to emerge in the threatened Test arena. For now, I challenge you to list 10 players currently under the age of 25 who will be welcomed to the wicket in their final Test with a guard of honour in recognition of their immortal services to the game. Anyone who correctly predicts all 10 will win a papier-mache macquette of Lalit Modi counting a colossal pile of Twenty20 cash in his garden shed. Results to be confirmed in the year 2029.

The Champions League Twenty20 has instantly replaced the Champions Trophy. To be honest with you, I had forgotten about this tournament. To be fair to the CLT20, however, I have forgotten many things in my life, including:

− almost everything I learnt at school and university
− almost everything I have ever learnt that is neither a sporting statistic nor the name of one of my children (the latter being an impressive feat, bearing in mind that I have not had them tattooed on me, so have to rely purely on my capacity for mental recall)
− where I left my keys this morning
− my own birthday
− why aeroplanes work, and
− who ultimately admitted to being afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.

As a neutral with no particular allegiance to any of the teams involved, and insufficient space in my diary and brain to invite another cricketing tournament to roost, my interest in the tournament is largely restricted to any evidence it may offer regarding whether Test cricket is doomed, and if it is, how soon that doom may loom.

For me, the highlights of the Champions Trophy were the complex moral and philosophical quandaries Andrew Strauss had to confront. Strauss played good cop in recalling Angelo Mathews after a mid-pitch collision led to a run-out, but bad cop in refusing Graeme Smith a runner after the poor big lambkin pulled up lame after a long day outdoors running around a bit. I think he was right on both counts, although I would have liked to see the England captain demand that Smith find a runner of near-identical build. Or that AB de Villiers be forced to put on extra clothing until he reached the same weight and girth as Smith. This in turn could have led to highly entertaining disputes about exactly how chunky the South African skipper currently is, with umpires having to measure with calipers the exact span of Smith’s tummy.

Cricket has always been a moral maze – should you walk when you snick one to the keeper? Should the fielder appeal for a catch when he knows that the ball bounced three times before it reached him? Should the umpire give a leg-before-wicket decision against a batsman who he thinks might be sleeping with his wife, even when he knows: (a) that the ball pitched marginally outside leg stump; (b) that his wife’s infidelity is the direct result of his own obsession with umpiring, leaving her feeling unwanted, unloved and used (how many evenings a week can a husband reasonably expect a wife to stand with pads on putting her legs in front of moving objects?); and (c) that the alleged Lothario batsman was at the non-striker’s end?

Over the weekend I will concoct some hypothetical scenarios to test your cricketing morality, including whether or not you should tell an opposition bowler that he is about to be eaten by a bear.

	We are so exhausted that we will surely win the Champions Trophy © Getty Images

Well, be honest. Did you see that coming from England? If you are claiming that you did, I want to see written proof, verified by an independent third party.

The latest upward surge in England’s wildly fluctuating 2009 has seen them give two outstanding and dominant performances in three days, including a new England record for sixes in a one-day international – 12 (twelve, honestly, twelve) (I saw them all with my own eyes) (albeit on television, so the possibility remains that the entire match was in fact a hoax).

Let’s put this in perspective. The dozen missiles launched by Shah, Morgan and Collingwood into the Centurion stratosphere on Sunday eclipsed England’s previous ODI record of 10 sixes in Napier two winters ago. Let’s put this in further perspective. England hit just eight sixes in the seven-game series against Australia just completed. And let’s now complete the perspective putting − Shah’s six bombs put him second equal on England’s all-time list for ODI aerial boundary blasts (as they will in due course become known to TV audiences); Morgan’s five place him fifth equal.

	If England win the Champions Trophy, and it is an ‘if’ so big that it can be seen with the naked eye from space, it will be one of the biggest surprises in world history. © Associated Press

The short-awaited Champions Trophy is underway, and, ominously for the other seven teams involved, South Africa have started as if they mean business. The Proteas have suffered serial disappointments in recent tournaments, often pulling defeat from the jaws of victory like an enthusiastically sadistic medieval dentist (sometimes even having to stretch beyond the jaws, and wrench defeat from victory’s duodenum with special forceps).

Graeme Smith and his men have therefore unleashed a new tactic which is almost guaranteed to win them the tournament – getting their traditional choke out of the way early enough that it doesn’t matter. South Africa’s performance in being hammered by the excellent Sri Lankans suggests that they are hell-bent on ultimate glory, and are rightly unwilling to risk starting the tournament looking like potential winners. They even went so far as to enter the event underprepared and rusty, to minimise their chances of peaking fatally early.

I am mildly excited about the tournament. It is of a size and length that should preclude the possibility of losing interest in all cricket, as often happens during World Cups, and features the six strongest teams in ODI cricket, plus West Indies and England representing the world’s up-and-coming limited-overs nations, and hoping to spring a surprise or two as Ireland did in the last World Cup.

Hello again Confectionery Stallers, and welcome back to the blog after a slightly-earlier-and-longer-than-expected holiday. I signed off the last blog in a flurry of post-Ashes statistical frenzy confidently predicting that I would post the Official Confectionery Stall Ashes Review. I can only apologise for not having done so. A number of things cropped up that prevented me doing so.

1. My wife discovered me having a candlelit dinner in a French restaurant with Statsguru. I tried to convince her that it was perfectly innocent, that I just wanted to thank Statsguru for all the help it has selflessly given me through the summer, but only time will tell whether she swallowed it. If she had heard me giggling coyly at all of Statsguru’s jokes, I would have been in big trouble.

Anyway, on our family holiday, I was not permitted to take even so much as a copy of Wisden with me. I tried to argue that if she was allowed to take two children with her, I was entitled to take two boxes of Wisdens with me. My wife, being a lawyer, won the argument convincingly. Even my offer to read her the match reports of England’s series in India in 1981-82 to help her get to sleep was rejected.

Now that we’ve all calmed down a bit, I have another statistic for you. And it’s a good one.

A series that has seen England plumb some extremely murky depths ended with a second joyous and outstanding triumph. Broad’s meteoric spell on Friday was supported by superb batting on Saturday, leaving Australia with an unrealistically Himalayan mountain to climb.

Ponting and his men had been bafflingly, unAustralianly passive and negative in the field as England piled potentially crucial extra rocks on top of what turned out to be a 546-run Everest. They set off confidently enough, but Hussey and Flintoff then combined to steal Ponting’s crampons and send him tumbling off the mountain, and then Clarke was unluckily bullocked off it by a passing African rhino in a hang glider (if I may attempt to convey quite how unfortunate he was when run out). It remains a mystery why North and Haddin then chose to hurl themselves down a ravine when there were still technically enough rations to at least attempt to reach the summit. It was a strange way of proving that Australians never give up.

Yesterday was a great day for English cricket, and in particular for Strauss, whose batting and coin-tossing were of the highest calibre, sparking celebrations that, rightly, did not touch the wild exultation of four years ago. For my part, I celebrated with a romantic evening in with Statsguru, and, well, without wishing to go into too much indelicate detail, things got a bit frisky between us, and a statistic emerged. A beautiful, bouncing new-born statistic. And its first words were these:

England averaged 6.49 runs per wicket less than Australia in this series, but still won. This is the biggest runs-per-wicket deficit ever overcome to win a Test series. In the entire history of cricket, the human race and the universe put together. Here endeth the stat.

Let’s all take a couple of minutes to think about that.

 

 

 

 

Come on, concentrate.

 

 

 

 

Good. This was the 35th time in 539 Test series that a team has won with an inferior average (and only the second Ashes contest in which the statistically weaker side has triumphed since 1902). Never has that inferiority been greater than 6.49 runs per wicket. The previous record margin was 6.03, when England hoodwinked South Africa in 1998 after narrowly escaping with a last-wicket-remaining draw at Old Trafford. Coincidentally, that was Flintoff’s first series – his career has been bookended by two of cricket’s greatest statistical heists.

So, did England deserve to win the series? Taking the five matches as a whole, perhaps they didn’t. Taking the two sides’ performances in the final, winner-takes-all shootout at The Oval, they probably did. Taking Australia’s first innings failures at Lord’s, Edgbaston and The Oval, they certainly deserved to lose it.

This statistic certainly confirms that this has been one of the oddest Ashes series of all time – two teams equally capable of both very good and genuinely atrocious cricket produced a series that was close overall without containing a single close game. Four of the Tests were massively one-sided (first innings leads of 239 at Cardiff, 210 at Lord’s, 343 at Leeds and 172 at The Oval). Only very briefly at Lord’s was there a match in which both sides had a realistic chance of winning, and this was rapidly snuffed out on the final morning.

All in all, it was a bit like watching a boxing match in which the fighters were punching their own faces as often as their opponent’s, or a two-horse steeplechase in which the horses alternately sail majestically over one fence before ploughing face-first straight into the next without even attempting to get off the ground. Australia ended snout-down in the last, leaving England to prance past them and trot down the final furlong punching the air in delight that there were no more fences left to crash into.

The destination of the urn was ultimately decided by England’s belated competence and resistance in Cardiff, and by Broad’s magnificence at the Oval on a pitch where no other fast bowler made a significant impression.

This has been a curate’s omelette of a series, and it seems that the decisive egg was thrown into the pan by Stuart Broad yesterday. Broad chose what can conservatively be described as a useful time to graduate from being a perennially promising bowler who had previously chipped away with occasional wickets, to being one capable of devastating an opposition top order – from a sporadically flaring barbecue to a full-blown Krakatoa in one magnificent spell.

He had taken more than three wickets only twice in 35 Test innings, so Australia’s backroom cricketing seismologists could be forgiven for not having detected the pre-rumblings of Broad’s extraordinary eruption of intelligently hostile swing and cut. He was ably aided by Graeme Swann, on a stupidly helpful surface, and Swann was unably aided Umpire Rauf, with two stupidly helpful lbw decisions.

England will have to pull off something spectacular to lose from here, which, on the patternlessly inconsistent form both sides have shown this series, is not out of the question. They seem set, however, to complete one of their oddest Ashes victories. They began this Test having been poor-to-hapless for large swathes of the first four games. No single player had compiled a properly good series – no batsman was averaging over 50, no bowler under 30, and even Strauss, comfortably England’s best player, had failed in two games out of four.

Australia statistically had most of the top batsmen and bowlers, but it now looks as if their irresponsible collapse at Lord’s, and less culpable but still carelessness-assisted one at the Oval yesterday will have decided the series.

	It increasingly seems that when England pick Steve Harmison, they essentially pick a myth © Getty Images

Sit down. I have some stats that may or may not be relevant to the Oval Test.

• Australia are averaging 13 runs per wicket more than England – 46 to 33 – meaning that, statistically, they have dominated this series more than they did the series of 1990-91, 1994-95 1997 or 1998-99 which they won comfortably without having to sully their baggy green hands with an important final Test, and more even than in the famous 4-1 Lillee-and-Thomson-ignited drubbing of 1974-75. Nevertheless, thanks to Monty Panesar’s unbreachable bat, they have failed to translate this obvious superiority into champagne-spraying exultation.

As an incidental substatistic, at the equivalent stage of the 2005 series, Australia and England both averaged 30.87 runs per wicket – though, when an extra decimal place is thrown into the equation, England had a clear advantage of 3 thousandths of a run per wicket over. Good, close series, that one, with hindsight.

• If England do win (and assuming they do not hand Australia a 1938-style innings-and-500 drubbing), they will become only the 2nd team since 1902 to win an Ashes series despite averaging less than their opponents − in 1981, England won 3-1 despite averaging fractionally lower than Australia (26.38 to 26.52). Botham’s aura evidently made a 0.15 runs-per-wicket difference then – can Flintoff’s overcome a 13-runs-per-wicket deficit this time?

• If England drop Graham Onions for Flintoff, they will attempt to take 20 wickets with five bowlers who, in the last two Ashes series, have taken 65 wickets at an average of 50.12, with a strike rate of a scalp every 83 balls. If they continue on this form, they will need 277 overs to bowl Australia out twice for a combined total of 1002 runs (excluding leg-byes and byes).

England will therefore have to score 1003 in around 170 overs to win. The best tactic on winning the toss would be to insert Australia, bowl them out for 501 by mid-afternoon on day two, then smash a quick run-a-ball 1003 for 9 declared by just after lunch on day four, and bowl Australia out for 501 again to win with the last ball of the match. The only potential flaw in this plan is that the 11 batsmen who would have to do this have, over the same time span, averaged 30, and scored at three per over. Still, stranger things have happened. Albeit, not in cricket. Or reality.

I have finally emerged from my special shed at the end of my garden that I keep for emergency situations, such as nuclear war, Armageddon, a large meteor homing in on South London, and mentally recovering from watching England being humiliatingly obliterated in a crucial Test match. I spent six months in there after Adelaide 2006. I remain unconvinced that I did not re-emerge too soon.

The £20 I forked out on a fifth-day ticket for Leeds proved to be one of my less sound financial investments, alongside the purchase of a surfboard made of salt, my bet that a zebra would win the Grand National by 2007, and a contribution to the research and development budget of a company making a sausage howitzer for rapid feeding of crowded school dining rooms.

Was Headingley operating a Nigerian-banking-style internet scam, preying on vulnerable and easily-misled cricket fans such as myself by promising an unforgettable day’s cricket, with England potentially winning the Ashes and adding a new entry to its Top 10 List of Greatest Ever Moments, for just £20 – the price of four £5 notes − when they knew full well that England were planning to collapse like a Victorian lady at the unexpected sight of a gentleman’s danglers? I knew it seemed too good to be true, but I was sucked in and the media were so persuasive I felt I couldn’t turn them down.

In the event, my Tuesday holiday at Headingley transpired to be a fairly dull experience, sitting alone in an ugly, empty stadium with a copy of Wisden, a pair of binoculars and an imagination. However, even trying to pretend England were knocking off 300 to win on the last afternoon proved impossible, and I ended up envisaging a mid-afternoon collapse and Ricky Ponting sprinting around the outfield with the Ashes screaming, “Yes, yes, yes, we’ve done it – we have vanquished the mightiest of the mighty.” To make matters worse, play in my imaginary final day ended late due to bad light and I missed my train back to London.

	How low can England go? Answer: very low © Getty Images

As I write, Broad and Prior are launching a spectacular Headingley-81-style fightback – a blazing partnership that has so far brought 22 defiant runs in just 20-odd minutes. Whether this develops into the 350-plus stand that might give Graham Onions a chance to do a Bob Willis remains to be seen, so, with the game still poised so delicately in the balance, here is a statistic for you.

England’s number 3, 4 and 5 have in this game posted the worst ever Test performance by and England 3-4-5. The worst. In 890 Tests. Even counting matches when nightwatchmen have broken up the 3-4-5. Even in 19th-century games when the wickets sometimes literally had snakes in them. Ouch. (Counting only games in which numbers 3, 4 and 5 have been dismissed twice, which seems fair in the circumstances.)

Bopara, Bell and Collingwood mustered 16 runs between them in their six innings. Even by the most positive-taking of modern standards, this was ‘a bit disappointing’ and ‘something that needs building on’.

In fact it was the equal third worst performance by numbers 3 to 5 in the batting order in all Test history (excluding South Africa at Melbourne in 1931-2, when they used a completely different 3-5 in the second innings, to spectacular effect – Bell, Mitchell and Cameron managed to double the 5 runs accumulated by Christy, Taylor an Viljoen in the first).

South Africa can proudly claim both first and second place in this list of shame. They managed 12 in a Test in 1888-89, at a time when they still pretty much pitched up at the ground and asked passers-by if they fancied a game of cricket for a couple of days. And, least triumphantly of all, Keith, Endean and McLean – not the worst 3-5 in Test history by any measure – amassed 6 runs in the 1955 Oval Test. Scores of 5, 0 and 1 in the first innings paved the way for three second-knock ducks as Laker and Lock filled their spinny boots on a turning wicket.

So at least Bopara, Bell and Collingwood can claim to have done 166% better than the 1955 South African 3-to-5. A small consolation as they take their place in English cricket’s slightly embarrassed history books.

[A quick update – Prior is out. I daresay the odds are now even longer the 500-1 England defied 28 years ago. But Broad has just been dropped by Siddle. Could that be the crucial turning point? No. No. No. It could not.]

For English masochists, those who dislike England for whatever reason, and those who simply love the statistics of failure, here is a list of the worst ever performances by an England 3, 4 and 5. Please ignore if you are of a sensitive disposition, or closely related to the three batsmen involved. Thanks be to Statsguru.

	Freddie, make way please. Behold the new Botham. © Getty Images

The Ashes scoots rapidly towards its denouement, with the fourth Test beginning today just under a month after the first. Both sides may be wondering whether they will ever again bowl the other out twice without serious meteorological assistance. And both may think that it is in their interests to club together and purchase a cloud machine.

England may be pondering whether or not they will still be allowed a bus parade and some New Year’s honours if the crowd keeps booing Ricky Ponting. Or if they grind out a 1-0 series win.

Ponting himself may be contemplating the inevitable consequences of becoming the second Australian captain after Billy Murdoch to lose two Ashes series in England – i.e. playing for England, which is what Murdoch found himself doing 18 months after his 1890 Ashes failure. An intriguing prospect, particularly with the next Ashes in Australia 18 months away, should Ponting prove able to displace Ravi Bopara from the England line-up.

The prospects for Headingley have been extensively discussed by far worthier keyboards than mine, so instead of wrongly guessing what might happen over the next five days, I present the first batch of nominations for the Confectionery Stall 2009 Ashes Mid-Series Awards.

Welcome to Part 2 of the Official Confectionery Stall Multiple Choice 2009 Ashes Quiz. Following last week’s four questions about the Lord’s Test, this week’s exam focuses more on the Edgbaston Test, which, if predictions about the weather and pitch prove true, is already shaping up to be one of the most exciting matches ever played in the Birmingham area which straddles July and August 2009.

Pencils at the ready...

5. Who is going to win at Edgbaston?

(a) England

They’ve already broken one hoodoo – not having beaten Australia at Lord’s since Greta Garbo was still a proactive conversationalist.

In the oldest of all cricketing proverbs: One Brings Two. They will surely now break another hoodoo – not having beaten Australia in the next Test match after beating Australia at Lord’s since 1890. It will help if the team can follow the example of the majority of the English media, and forget how they only managed to escape from the jaws of defeat in Cardiff by first coating themselves in mayonnaise and climbing into those jaws.

(b) Australia

Mitchell Johnson has set himself up perfectly for a startling return to form, catapulting England out on a docile pitch before slugging a match-winning century. Australia’s batsmen are averaging almost 10 runs an innings more than England’s in the series so far, and, as Michael Clarke himself said, his team is never more dangerous than when the chips are down. Recent history suggests this is almost as big a lie as his claim that this Australian team is as good as any he has played in, but you have to admire the lad for saying it anyway.

(c) No-one – it will be a draw

Rain is forecast, the pitch is reportedly flat as a demotivated pancake, and, more pertinently, both sides should have learned from their mistakes of the first two Tests, each of which were played on friendly batting surfaces, and each of which required batting of catastrophic ineptitude to lead make a positive result possible.

Even so, the runs-per-wicket for both sides put together (43) is so far the highest ever in an Ashes series. It will take something special for either side to force a defeat out of themselves.

Furthermore, in the West Indies, England proved masters at accidentally playing for the draw when they need to play for the win. They should therefore have no trouble playing for the draw when they actually need to play for the draw. Three stalemates would be enough to match the glorious 1926 and 1953 one-nil-out-of-five triumphs.

(d) No-one – it will be a tie

There has never been an Ashes tie. The last Edgbaston Test was the closest the two teams have ever come. There have been 321 Tests between these nations. Statistically, with only four results possible, around 80 of those should have been ties. It is long overdue.

	Bryce McGain struggles with question 2 © Getty Images

As promised, here is Paper 1 of the Official Confectionery Stall Multiple Choice 2009 Ashes Quiz/Exam. Answer the following four questions to the very best of your ability. No cheating. Read your answers aloud to your computer or a trusted household pet, then wait and see what happens.

All those scoring above the Test batting average of their favourite player are entitled to draw themselves a certificate, and scribble their names onto a Test scorecard from an appropriate edition of Wisden.

QUESTION 1:
Where does the Lord’s victory rank amongst the great achievements in British history?

(a) Not very high. It’s only a game. And Australia were, for the most part, garbage. When a solid but habitually unspectacular opening partnership such as Cook and Strauss put on 196 in 40-odd overs without having to think about taking even half a risk, you know you’ve bowled like a skip full of rotting potatoes.

(b) Quite high. Below Shakespeare’s plays, but above Buck’s Fizz winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981. One of the great monkeys has been removed from the national sporting back, but that will be forgotten if England allow the monkey to then climb up a tree and urinate on their picnic by failing to win the Ashes.

(c) Top of the list. Bar none. The Cardiff-Lord’s double was the finest escape-followed-by-victory combination since the Dunkerque-Battle-of-Britain one-two in 1940. However, bearing in mind that Britain had prevailed in a world war just over 20 years previously, the Lord’s win has even greater rarity value.

QUESTION 2: Why did Australia play so astonishingly badly for large and decisive parts of the game?

(a) Because they are a largely inexperienced team, and therefore prone to inconsistency, with some key players out of form. We don’t yet know how good they are. Their impressive series win in South Africa looked like a resurgence after back-to-back defeat in India and against the Proteas. But was the away victory over Graeme Smith’s team what economists would call a ‘dead cat bounce’ – the short-lived but misleading rise of a plummeting stock before it plonks back down onto the ground, lifeless and worthless, like a cat lobbed out of an office window? If so, can Ponting and Nielsen resuscitate the cat? Are the Australians willing and able to kneel down and give mouth-to-mouth to a cat? Or is the cat actually fine? Did the cat deliberately throw itself out of the window to pass the time on a dull afternoon, play dead for a while to attract some attention, whilst planning to leap back to its feet and miaow, “I’m fine, never felt better, what are you all fussing about? I suppose a bowl of milk’s out of the question?”

(b) Because the entire Australian nation has completely lost its manhood. Where Merv Hughes sported a moustache that simply bellowed, “I mean business, and I’ve got half my lunch stuck on my upper lip to prove it,” now Peter Siddle has a small and unforgivable tuft of hair languishing apologetically below his mouth. And what about Haddin’s comments about Hauritz’s finger dislocation? “I don't know if I can talk about it,” wept the wicketkeeper, wiping a tear from his eye with a trembling glove. “I don’t like seeing those things,” he continued, whilst calling for a little teddy bear to cuddle to help him through the ordeal. “My stomach can’t handle it,” he concluded, before running away and hiding under a desk until he was sure it was safe to emerge. Allan Border must be spinning in his still-empty grave.

(c) They didn’t. No less an authority on the matter than Ricky Ponting said so, and he should know.

(d) Because of Rudi Koertzen.

	Michael Clarke took his test after reaching his hundred. Be inspired © AFP

QUESTION 3:
So did Michael Clarke really, honestly, mean it when he claimed before the first Test that “we’re as good as any team I have been part of for Australia”?

a) Yes. Absolutely. He believes it to the very bottom of his baggy green soul. But he is also suffering from major amnaesia after headbutting a large, moving truck. He cannot remember anything from before June 2009.

b) No. He’s not a total idiot. But, in the circumstances, he was unlikely to say: “Hauritz is a decent tweaker, but let’s be honest, he’s barely fit to play the same sport as Warney. Siddle gives it a go but if he’s Glenn McGrath then I’m Cyndi Lauper. And Mike Hussey is nowhere near as good as that guy Michael Hussey who played for us a couple of years ago.”

c) Yes. But he didn’t finish the sentence. He was distracted by a low-flying buzzard before he could continue: “... that has contained five players whose name begins with H. No doubt about it.” Or, possibly: “... at motorcycle pyramids. Yeah, we’re great at the old team stunt riding. Managed to get all eleven of us balanced on a Kawasaki last week whilst Punter pulled a wheelie. Bradman’s so-called ‘Invincibles’ could barely even ride a bicycle by comparison.”

QUESTION 4: Did Strauss really catch Hughes?

a) Yes, sure did, went in clean as a nun’s whistle. Look in the scorebook if you’re still not sure. Or, more practically, look at a scorecard in a newspaper or on the internet, they’ll probably be easier to access than the actual Lord’s scorebook. But the point stands. He’s the England Cricket Captain. Not any old Cricket Captain. The England Cricket Captain. By definition, he is the most honourable man in the known world.

b) Possibly. He probably caught it on the end of his fingers, but it might have brushed the grass on its way in, which he would not necessarily have felt. This explains why he celebrated spontaneously, and without the evil glint in his eye or demonic cackle that surely would have been present had he been pulling a fast one.

c) No. Clearly not. The ball almost bounced over his head before he caught it. The fact that he even thought about claiming the catch proves that the entire English nation has not only gone to the dogs, but it has dressed up in a cat outfit and is waiting for those dogs to eat it. This ‘catch’, if such a word is applicable to such an act of nefarious naughtiness, proves that the public school system is nothing more than a factory of cheats, liars and hoodwinkers.

---

The remaining questions will be unleashed on Monday, including (in case any of you wish to do some revision before sitting Part 2): How much will England miss Kevin Pietersen? What is the solution to disputed catches? Who will win at Edgbaston? And, in retrospect, could the 12th-man glove-trundling incident in Cardiff have been the most important single moment in English cricket history?

The correct answers will be given after the Edgbaston Test, or possibly after Headingley, or even after the Oval, depending on when the truth makes itself known to the relevant authorities