David Hussey: not particularly fond of beer and barbies either © Getty Images

Sunday, 26th February
One of the joys of cricket is the opportunity it gives us for vigorous debate whenever another little hole is found in the tattered fabric of the blessed Laws. Is the ball dead, or is it merely resting? Is it six if a stray platypus catches the ball and carries it over the boundary rope whilst keeping one webbed foot on the field of play?

This kind of stuff also lets us bask in the illusion that, through the scrutiny of a few densely written paragraphs of cricket scripture, ideally read aloud from a tatty old Wisden, we can pin down the whole messy business of reality, dig out the pure truth and then batter everyone about the head with it until they agree with us.

India’s captain knows all about this kind of thing, and having been overly generous at Trent Bridge last year, he wasn’t letting Hussey minor get away with anything today. But after an awful lot of chin-scratching, Hussey II did wriggle free of the clutches of Law 33, on the grounds that he had handled the ball to avoid injury.

So perhaps Law 33 needs a new paragraph, defining the difference between “injury” and “Mummy, I got an owie!” Besides, I thought Antipodean cricketers were tough. If Little Huss is claiming that he was scared of a tiny bruise on his tummy, then it’s time he thought seriously about whether he’s entitled to that Australian passport.

Monday, 27th February
Once upon a time, television viewers were enthralled by shows like Dallas, Dynasty and, if their evenings were particularly empty, The Colbys; glamorous melodramas featuring ludicrous characters and preposterous financial goings-on that almost always ended in tears, recriminations and implausible, series-ending cliff-hangers.

But in recent years, cricket lovers have been able to follow their own high-finance and skulduggery-themed soap opera. The Shires is a tale of colossal egos and massive financial incontinence amongst the deceptively comatose world of county cricket. It’s a tale of dodgy architects, high-maintenance South Africans and crazy fixture lists.

Above all, it’s the story of 18 desperate men, men who know there’s only so much subsidy money to go round. In an earlier episode, the chairman of Hampshire had sold his ground to the council. Today he sold the name of the ground that he’d sold to the council to a company named after a random selection of Scrabble tiles.

From now on, Hampshire cricket lovers, proud heirs to the legacy of Hambledon, will be privileged to call the place where they watch their cricket the Ageas Bowl. “Ageas” is from the Latin “agere” meaning “unpronounceable drivel” but was also the name of the Greek God of Financial Disaster. I can’t wait to see what Hampshire do next.

Some troublemakers might ask what all the hospitality gazebos, satin-furnished conference suites, innovative financial arrangements and Surrealist pavilions have got to do with identifying and developing talented England cricketers? This is, after all, the thing for which counties receive the annual subsidies that keep them afloat.

But, like Dallas, The Shires shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is a fantasy world populated with implausible men in suits pretending that their heavily subsidised debt-ridden sports clubs are proper businesses. And, like the best soaps, it will end with a bang as several counties commit financial suicide in the final episode.

Also available in a Bob Willis stylee © Getty Images

Wednesday, 22nd February
Stung by accusations that they have been a tad complacent in light of their team’s somewhat less than triumphant excursion to the Antipodes, the BCCI has today announced a wide-ranging review. Entitled “What We Did on Our Holidays”, it will be headed by an experienced playground supervisor and will aim to get to the bottom of a number of key concerns raised by players, specifically:

1. The X-Box rotation policy limiting senior players to half an hour each
2. The way Ishant always has the volume of his iPod too high on the bus
3. Gautam’s reluctance to change his socks
4. Praveen’s annoying habit of slurping his tea
5. Viru’s refusal to sit in the front row at team meetings if Mahi is there
6. The amount of time Virat spends in the bathroom

The review will be complete by the time the players land in Delhi and is expected to conclude that after ten weeks of being cooped up in the same coaches, dressing rooms and hotel lifts it would be in the best interests of Indian cricket and the sanity of all concerned if they spent some quality time as far away from each other as possible.

Thursday, 23rd February
England’s fast bowlers may look like nice young men who spend their spare time helping elderly ladies across busy roads and retrieving kittens from high branches, but sometimes they can be grumpier than Bob Willis at a Justin Bieber concert. Today it was Steven Finn who was wearing the angry trousers, heaping abuse on a slightly nonplussed Awais Zia, both before and after he took Zia’s wicket.

To the untrained eye, this carry-on might appear to be the petulance of a schoolboy who can’t cope when things don’t go his way. But Steven is 22, so that couldn’t be it. So what was his problem? Had his ECB underpants shrunk in the wash? Were his bunions playing up? Had he overdosed on the Daily Mail? And then I worked it out. Like me, he must have sat through Sky’s pre-match unpleasantries.

We all know the drill. Every viewer must pass through an initiation ceremony, an ordeal of inanity, in order to get to the thing for which they’ve paid. Today’s theme was KP’s confidence. First the chaps in Dubai informed us that he’d be full of it. They handed back to the studio, whereupon Ian Ward asked his first guest if KP would really be full of confidence. Yes, said Rob Key, Kevin would be full of confidence.

But Ward was leaving nothing to chance and brought in Robert Croft for the Celtic angle on Pietersen’s confidence. He concluded that KP would be full of confidence. At least I think he did. Croftie has a troubled relationship with vowels and his strenuous attempts to elucidate his opinions produced the kind of jaw arrangements you might associate with a snake trying unsuccessfully to regurgitate a mouse.

It went on. A quantam of waffle from Nasser Hussain; a light shower of drivel from David Lloyd and Aamer Sohail, including an anecdote about Lloyd having to borrow a tie*; adverts for deodorant, banks and cars; and an exchange of platitudes with a bored-looking Craig Kieswetter wearing a bored-looking baseball cap. After several minutes of this, my nerves were frayed, my mute button broken and my porcelain tea service in peril. No wonder Steven was so cross. Had I been expected to go out and play cricket after that, I might not have been able to restrain myself either.

*Turns out he didn’t have a tie so he had to borrow one

Masterful overlords of one-day cricket. For the next seven minutes or so. © Getty Images

Saturday, 18th February
Opinions, like socks, are commonplace and most people have several, though they can’t always remember where they got them from. It is also the mark of the civilised individual that they change them regularly, and so this weekend, English cricket journalists have been proudly displaying some freshly laundered ones.

Throughout 2011 they were agreed that England had not the faintest notion of an inkling of a clue as to how to tackle the 50-over stuff but that their ineptitude was not really a big deal because Test cricket is where it’s at, the World Cup is just a big yawn, and no one cares about a format that is all a little bit 1980s.

However, in the light of England’s recent series victory and dramatic rise up the rankings from mid-table to upper mid-table, the desert-bound hacks, suffering perhaps from a cocktail of sand exhaustion and golf fatigue, are spinning us a line about the importance of the 50-over game and England’s building for 2015.

It seems to have slipped their memory that the chaps from Blighty have rather cornered the market in false dawns over the years. It might be wise for journalists not to rush to the window claiming that they can see the sun rising on England’s new 50-over empire simply because Cook and chums have won three games in a row.

For instance, the last time England stood poised on the brink of a one-day series whitewash was in 2008, against South Africa. Did this herald:

a) the inexorable rise of England’s 50-over fortunes, culminating in top spot in the one-day rankings and a World Cup final appearance?

b) absolutely nothing?

You may already know the answer, but if you need a clue, it wasn’t a). It never is.

I have an alternative theory, which I’ve named the Quantity Theory Of Victory. The theory states that there is only so much victory that a normal team can absorb before they experience what is known as Victory Fatigue and reach a state of Can’t Be Botheredness. Pakistan, having reached their maximum level of victory in the Test series, were scientifically incapable of winning the succeeding tournament.

We’ve seen this before. How often does one team win the Test series only to see their flattened opponents struggle to their feet and triumph in the one-day arena? If I were a diligent writer, I would investigate how often. Since, however, I am lazier than an elderly cat after a heavy meal on a sunny afternoon, I have not done this. But having thought about it for a bit, I believe the answer to be “quite often”.

Tuesday, 21st February
A few days back, Giles Clarke, ever watchful guardian of all that is sacred and profitable in our great game, announced that the ECB’s crack team of cyber police (David Collier’s nephew and his friends from the IT club) would be scouring the virtual seas of the interweb in search of naughty pirates with their illegal feeds and dangerously unregulated streams. At least I think that’s what he said.

Well, it seems that the ECB are now opening up a new front in their ongoing struggle to prevent cricket fans from getting access to cricket. Their top-secret listening station in St John’s Wood will be “monitoring” Test Match Sofa, and no doubt the people involved will find suspicious-looking ECB operatives in leather overcoats following them when they pop out to the newsagent for cigarettes and moisturising wipes.

I’ve listened to Test Match Sofa and whilst it isn’t really my cup of Earl Grey, it does have at least two things going for it. Firstly, it annoys the ECB. Secondly, it does not, at least as far as I can tell, feature Michael Vaughan, his accent or any of his golf anecdotes. These are good things and give it a big advantage over the other TMS. Besides, Giles, I’m no businessman, but I thought competition was a good thing?

Gayle had to retire hurt after fluctuations in the international currency exchange upset his stomach © BPL T20

Wednesday, 15th February
Derbyshire today revealed that they had turned an enormous loss into a marginally smaller loss by offering their ground as a wedding venue. This excellent idea should encourage other counties to find ways to generate a little extra money and to help them along, we’re launching a new feature called “101 Uses For A County Cricket Ground”. Here are three from the top drawer:

1. With their prime locations, Lord’s and The Oval could be turned into exclusive business heliports, enabling millionaires/billionaires/international fraudsters to get easy access to London’s financial district or alternatively, to make a quick getaway.

2. By turning their outfields into arable farmland, counties could swap their piffling ECB handouts for massive EU agricultural subsidies. Each county could specialise in a particular vegetable and the County Championship would be replaced by the Friends Provident Harvest Festival, judged by Geoffrey Boycott and Alan Titchmarsh.

3. With England running short of landfill sites, what better way to celebrate the summer game than to create 18 heritage waste dumps where unwanted copies of Alastair Cook’s third volume of autobiography (How I Scored Some Runs In Different Countries) and Graeme Swann’s Swanny In A Spin DVD (now three-for-the-price-of-one at “World Of Tat”) can be safely disposed of.

Thursday, 16th February
Chris Gayle’s spell as top earner for the Rand Rhinos in South Africa’s Money Money Money Trophy maybe in doubt after the ubiquitous leather abuser suffered another injury. Gayle, who was already struggling with a swollen bank account and had been managing his condition with regular cash injections, has now been diagnosed with diary strain and could be out for up to six weeks.

It was revealed that Gayle had been carrying the injury throughout January but had managed to turn out for Sydney Sausages in the BBL, Barisal Boredom in the BPL and as Widow Twankey in the Southend Repertory Company’s production of Aladdin and the Golden Handshake.

His engagements in the Tahitian, Iranian and Uzbekistan Premier Leagues are now in doubt, but doctors are hopeful that a course of remunerative treatment in Bangalore later this spring may enable his wallet to make a full recovery.

Friday, 17th February
Good news, franchise fans. The Sahara Pune Warriors will be taking part in this year’s IPL (“IPL 5: The Shrinking”). Kochi have already gone and, as Lady Bracknell would almost certainly have put it, to lose two franchises due to opaque contractual, administrative or financial disagreements looks like carelessness.

Sahara’s epic sulk, which included the termination of their sponsorship of the Indian team, the withdrawing of the Pune Warriors from the IPL to take part in the Pune Warriors Premier League (against Pune Warriors B, Pune Warriors Under-15s and the Harlem Globetrotters) and a parliamentary motion to have the words “Indian, premier, league and cricket” removed from the dictionary, is finally over.

A deal was done earlier today and, whilst BCCI officials were adamant that they had not bowed to Sahara’s demands in any way, they did reveal that they had made the following concessions in the interests of themselves:

1. Pune Warriors to be allowed to field 14 players during home games

2. A fresh box of a dozen jelly doughnuts (no sprinkles) to be at Mr Roy’s door by eight o’clock every morning for the duration of the IPL

3. A reform of the discriminatory and outdated rules on bat size, allowing Pune Warriors batsmen to employ three-foot wide blades

4.The words “Champions 2012: Pune Warriors” to be engraved on the IPL trophy before the tournament begins, “just in case”.

5. Ravi Shastri to insert four agreed phrases into the finely woven oral thread of his commentary narratives, specifically:

a) ‘This Pune team are unstoppable!’
b) ‘You’d have to fancy Pune for this one!’
c) ‘If you ask me Pune can go all the way!’
d) ‘There’s Subrata Roy, what a handsome man he is!’

Memo to MS: the calm impassivity thing can only take you so far © Getty Images

Monday, 13th February
In a leap year, strange things happen. February has an extra day, women can propose to men, and most bizarrely of all, England have won a one-day game. The last time they were any good at this stuff was 1992, also a leap year. Coincidence? Yes, probably, given that they mostly sucked in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008.

But the main thing is, they won a game. Pakistan finally collapsed like an exhausted school bully who’d already extracted all the lunch money and sweets he could possibly need.

Alastair Cook scored a one-day century, which is good news for English hacks who get to run the “Alistair Cook silences his critics” story for the hundredth time, despite the fact that even Alastair Cook’s most dedicated critics, including the retired colonel from Barking who used to follow Cook around the world haranguing him via a loud hailer about his substandard strike rate, have long ago admitted he’s not that bad.

But heading in the opposite direction on the career escalator is poor Kevin Pietersen. Today he was back in the role of “pinch hitter”, which in KP’s case means you pinch yourself if he hits it. Alastair Cook was so embarrassed for the man, he tried to play some Pietersen-style shots, just to remind Kevin what he was supposed to do, like flapping your arms vigorously to encourage a goose with amnesia to fly.

Sadly there was no take off for KP. Instead he gave us a painstaking 36-ball deconstruction of his own batting technique, before Shahid put him out of his befuddled misery. A few years ago he was swatting Warne and Murali into the stands. Now he plays spin bowling like a drunken trainee scythe operative tackling a field of hay in a force-nine gale. In the dark.

Tuesday, 14th February
International cricketers are pretty high profile these days, but they still have a lot to learn about how sporting superstars are supposed to conduct themselves in the 21st century. Take today’s game in Adelaide. India’s attempt to chase down Sri Lanka’s total ended in a tie but it turned out that they were a delivery short.

Now this is far from ideal. We don’t expect our crack units of elite umpires to nail every decision, but we do expect that between them, they will be able to count to six.

So what was the response of MS Dhoni, the wronged captain?

“It’s done and dusted…We can create a big fuss out of it, but what’s the point?”

Come on MS, you’re not really trying. I’ve been watching a lot of Premier League football of late, so I can explain to you how it should be done.

First, upon discovering the error, you should have “got all up in the umpire’s face”, as I believe the Americans put it. Convention demands that your team-mates surround the official, jostle him, wave their arms about and generally carry on like five-year-olds at bedtime. Cricketers don’t always get the chance to do this on the pitch, so you may need to stage the jostling at the umpire’s hotel, perhaps when he leaves his room to fetch his dry cleaning, or in the lift on the way down to the breakfast buffet.

You should then explain in your pitch-side interview that the umpire “was an absolute disgrace” before feeding your story to eager tabloid hacks who will regurgitate the half-digested controversy in headline form, perhaps: “Dhoni Blasts Umpire In Adding-Up Storm!” or “You Can’t Count Roars Skipper!”

Still, apart from the missed opportunities for controversy, it was an entertaining game. My highlight was the run out of Angelo Mathews. It is often said that men can’t multi-task, but as Angelo showed, we sometimes struggle with just the one task too. A reproduction of the Mathews thought process might go like this:

“Right, Irfan’s bowling, so focus Angelo, keep your eye on the ball, here it comes, oh it’s a full toss, I should hit that, damn missed it… ooh was that the microwave, my popcorn’s done, better hurry or it’ll go all cold and cardboardy… hang on, what am I doing in the middle of the pitch and why is everyone laughing?”

The rumour that Ajmal subs for Rudolph every leap year is completely false. He only does it when Rudolph is picked in the Lapland Premier League © AFP

Thursday, 9th February
What’s the difference between a nuclear fallout and a media fallout*? Well, a nuclear fallout is a deeply unpleasant side effect that lingers interminably, whereas a media fallout is a deeply unpleasant side effect that lingers interminably for which journalists get paid.

Early in the recent series, a few English types tried to launch the Saeed Ajmal crooked arm thing, but like a poorly constructed kite on a windless afternoon, it didn’t really take off, no matter how much they ran with it. In the end it was left to Saeed himself to take pity on the struggling hacks by talking about his special dispensation from the ICC to have a bent arm or something. I forget the details.

And as sure as the doosra follows Ian Bell’s front pad, a little typhoon of tediousness blew up in the desert as journalists and message board trolls desperately tried to fan the infant spark of baby controversy into a toddler-sized blaze. Yesterday, ESPNcricinfo’s own King Cnut, George Dobell, tried valiantly to stand against the waves of silliness by laying out the facts about Saeed’s perfectly legal action.

But no one with newspapers to sell or fellow cricket lovers to annoy is interested in anything as dreary as facts and George’s efforts have not stemmed the tide of preposterous speculation and libellous insanity. So it falls to the Long Handle to sort things out. In no particular order, here are the answers to the questions you wanted to ask, didn’t ask because you were afraid you’d look stupid but then thought, “Ah well, it’s the internet, no one’s looking,” and posted them up anyway.

I heard from the wife of the man who grooms Shoaib Akhtar’s poodle that Saeed Ajmal cannot straighten his right arm as he is half-velociraptor. Is this true?

No. Saeed only spent his summer holidays with the velociraptors who were friends of the family. In fact, he grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma where he developed the kink in his arm from too much vigorous lassoing of cattle as a child.

Ten years ago, in a secret deal with the PCB, the ICC cleared the use of artificial arms with food blender attachments that can impart illegal levels of spin and pace on the ball and, being made of aluminium, never get tired. Is this true?

This is perfectly true, but to date, Mitchell Johnson is the only international cricketer to have incorporated cyborg technology, with mixed results. Engineers are now working on the Midge 2.01, a mechanical arm featuring a safety valve that prevents the bowler from releasing the ball if he’s facing in the wrong direction.

Last August, whilst browsing in the Redditch branch of Sainsbury’s I saw Saeed Ajmal reaching for a tin of pilchards from the top shelf of the tinned produce aisle and I noticed that he completely straightened his arm. Doesn’t this prove beyond reasonable doubt that he is a cheat, albeit a cheat with a high Omega 3 intake?

No. In fact, it is well know that Saeed is allergic to fish, which is why when he was shipwrecked in the Bermuda Triangle with Lady Gaga and the UN Secretary General they were able to sustain themselves by catching sea creatures, whilst our hero lost two kilograms in weight and had to survive by eating pages of Ian Bell’s autobiography. The man you mistook for Saeed was almost certainly Ramiz Raja without the Austin Powers wig that he dons for his celebrity appearances on Sky.

My friend and I were having a disagreement. She thinks the argument about DRS is the most tedious topic of cricket conversation known to humanity, but I’m convinced that the degrees of tolerance debate is so boring it can cause birds to fall out of the sky and fish to commit suicide by banging their heads against the side of their tank just to make it stop. Which of us is right?

You both are.

* Not to be confused with a media falling out, which is what happens when David Gower accidentally treads on Jonathan Agnew’s foot and causes him to tip coffee all over Geoffrey Boycott’s laptop as he’s writing his column for the Whine on Sunday.

England were less than pleased to hear that Trott and Cook didn’t win the coveted Most Soporific Batting Performance by a Duo or Group © Getty Images

Saturday, 6th February
While the cricket world is engrossed by a fascinating Test series in Dubai and the Commonwealth Bank ménage-a-trois is just warming up, into our consciousness barges the IPL, like a messenger in a ten-foot-tall peacock outfit interrupting a village wedding to announce via a solid-gold loudhailer that the Maharajah will be holding a bacchanalian orgy and concubine market at the Palace and all are invited.

Or to put it another way, it’s IPL auction time. As usual, some of the world’s finest cricketers were on offer at completely random prices, which is what makes this game show so entertaining. The eager contestants queue for their chance to give the Wheel Of Crazy Money a spin and see what wacky prizes they end up with. Vinay Kumar $1 million! Sunil Narine $700k! Somebody bought Mitchell Johnson! Crazy!

In keeping with IPL tradition, there were a few English bridesmaids, and we now look forward to another post-auction ritual: guessing which of the unsold Englishmen will be the first to declare (whilst wiping away a tear) that they never wanted to play in the thing anyway and that their first priority has always been international cricket/turning out for Nowhereshire/spending April decorating the spare room.

Monday, 6th February
So, after a short but spectacular run, the England Test team’s touring show, Carry On Dubai is over. But if you’ve enjoyed their madcap mixture of clumsy footwork and hapless swiping, you’ll be pleased to know that the ECB has scheduled two more spin-themed farces later this year. Chaos In Colombo will open on March 26 and there are high hopes for the autumn production of Nonplussed In Nagpur.

Not all the reviews have been positive, but Andrew Strauss insists that England got better as the series went on and the stats back him up. They lost by a narrow 71 runs today, compared to a massive 72 last time and at this rate of improvement, they should finally be gaining the upper hand towards the end of the 2107-08 series.

Having already used up their stock of excuses, the English media have been a little short of plausible explanations for this unfortunate third outbreak of failure and so have fallen back on sniping about how slowly Azhar Ali bats, which is a little unfair. He may not be a dasher but the drowsiness induced by an Azhar innings is as nothing compared to the powerful sedative effect of a Cook-Trott partnership.

Anyway, enough of the losers, let’s talk about the winners, who are currently at the high point of the Pakistan Cricket Cycle, which is a bit like the economic cycle, or perhaps the life-cycle of the phoenix, and has four stages:

1. Chaos.
2. New captain harnesses the available abundance of talent to secure surprising triumph that promises much for the future of Pakistan cricket.
3. Someone does something silly.
4. Chaos.

At the moment it’s hard to see any of the players or coaching staff coming up with something silly, so I guess it’s over to you, PCB. There’s not a lot to work with, but maybe you could sack Misbah, appoint the Interior Minister’s nephew as opening batsman or even withdraw from the ICC? You’ll have your work cut out to turn this triumph into disaster, but I’m sure you can do it if you put your minds to it.

"It's that or the firing squad, Brad" © Getty Images

Wednesday, 1st February
How do you let someone know that you’re not interested any more? That they are the leftover bit of pastry dough or the spare screw in the flat pack furniture set?

You could tell them bluntly that the spark has gone, that you don’t find their sledging thrills like it used to, that they can’t catch and that your mother never liked them. This can be painful; there may be tears, perhaps the odd bruise. But it’s the kindest way.

Option two is to take the little kernel of truth and wrap it in an awful lot of stuff that could plausibly be true, but on this occasion isn’t. It’s not you, Brad, it’s me. I’ve changed. I used to think that looking like Ian Healy and occasionally blasting a quick 50 was all I wanted in a keeper, but now I realise I was wrong. That kind of thing.

But John Inverarity has gone for option three - the evil villain approach. In this scenario, you enact the dumping but dress it up in the sort of vaguely sinister euphemisms best delivered by an od- looking man in an overstuffed leather armchair, stroking a cat.

“You have disappointed us, Mr Haddin. Perhaps you need a rest. Perhaps the schedule is beyond you. I am sorry that you have to leave us now. Kindly stand on the spot marked with an X and wait while I press the red button. Is it safe? Oh yes, perfectly safe, Mr Haddin, you won’t feel a thing.”

But Brad’s not buying it. He can see through the talk of gruelling schedules to the harsh reality beneath. He knows he hasn’t been rested and after Matthew Wade’s knock today, he may be even more dropped than he was yesterday.

If he has pulled on the saggy green for the last time, it will be a shame and possibly a season or two earlier than he’d hoped. Having taken the precaution of not being very good at sport, I’ve never found myself dropped from an international team, but I imagine it must feel a bit like someone tapping you on the shoulder in the middle of the most amazing party and telling you that you have to leave. A bit like life, really.

Thursday, 2nd February
The Woolf Report is in today, continuing a family tradition of Woolfs taking the game’s governing body to task. It is well known that Virginia Woolf was a scathing critic of the Imperial Cricket Conference and regularly used to bore the rest of the Bloomsbury set with her long-winded diatribes about the state of the modern game, as this extract from Lytton Strachey’s diary attests:

“Afternoon tea with V.W. Banging on about the overcrowded fixture list and England having to play as many as eight Tests in a year. Made polite noises. Light-heartedly suggested she take interest in a more lady-like pastime. Did not go down well.”

Published in 1924, her first novel, The Woolf Report, was a tautly plotted administrative thriller based around the struggle of a minor MCC official called Victor Woolf as he sought to overhaul the antiquated filing system and reform the outdated Edwardian board meetings by instituting a revolutionary biscuit rota.

But the book did not go down well in literary circles. Her friend EM Forster told her that no one in their right mind would want to read administrative cricket fiction and that if that was the best she could come up with, she might as well go the whole hog and just write down any old thoughts that popped into her head. The following year she released Mrs Dalloway and her cricket writing career never recovered.

Sadly, this second Woolf Report is not a patch on the first. There is no plot to speak of, the dialogue is non-existent, there are very few sword fights and the characters, including a businessman who owns a cricket team, runs the national game and sits on the ICC board all at the same time, are frankly implausible. All in all, a bit of a disappointment. If you haven’t read it I’d wait for the movie.

Patient Pakistan is not as entertaining as out-patient Pakistan, but far more satisfying to watch © AFP

Sunday, 29th January
“And so the Andy who was called Strauss led his disciples into the desert. For three days and three nights they wandered but on the fourth day they rested on the back foot and were caught unawares. There was then much wailing and gnashing of teeth and they returned unto their hotel whereupon they did beat their X-Boxes mercilessly.”

The Greeks didn’t give us the whole picture. Nemesis comes after hubris all right, but they missed out stage three: recrimination, which is the worst bit. Sky’s usual suspects looked like appalled teachers confronted with the evidence that last term’s top student had just been caught smoking in the sixth form toilets. Bob was loftily contemptuous, Botham was steaming and Nasser was definitely not amused.

But are they being fair? England are a good team, they just aren’t as good as all that. There’s no disgrace in losing to Pakistan, who played very well. What’s the problem?

The problem is that England’s media cheerleaders have spent the last six months indulging their fevered patriotic imaginations and now that Strauss and chums have slipped up, the pundits are left feeling more than a little cheesy.

Things were already getting silly a year ago, after England beat one of the worst Australian teams ever to don saggy cloth caps. Then they beat India and silliness readings went off the scale. One writer even got away with listing England’s 2011 vintage as one of the best five Test sides of all time without being immediately arrested and detained in a suitable medical facility for his own safety.

We’ve seen it all before. In fact, this English habit of premature laurel-resting was first noted at the Battle of Hastings when five minutes after the start of play, King Harold, observing that the Normans were struggling to break the English shield wall, declared that the battle was over, his army was clearly the best since the Romans and sat down for an impromptu muffin and mead break.

So now that events have demonstrated that England are somewhat less than invincible, the wronged experts must have someone to blame. I’m no psychic, but I suspect attention will first turn to the least English of the Abu Dhabi failures. Mr Trott’s gastro-intestinal tribulations may earn him a sympathetic reprieve and so scapegoat duties will have to be assigned to either Mr Morgan or Mr Pietersen.

But the blame apportioners are missing the point. Test cricket is more interesting when there is an unresolved scrap for No. 1, and right now there are at least four teams involved in the squabble to be top Test dog. Pakistan are one of them and not just because they have a pair of proper spinners. Misbah’s Pakistan is Patient Pakistan and that is the most dangerous kind of Pakistan you can get.

It was Ajmal and Rehman who dismantled England’s house with their spinning wrecking ball, but the hard work was done on day three by Azhar and Asad, who batted like Geoff Boycott’s older, more circumspect cousins, blunted the tourist’s momentum as though their bats were saucepans and Broad and co were onrushing cartoon cats in pursuit of a runaway mouse, and so set up the final day’s spectacle.