Ijaz Butt calls up the ICC in a rage to find out if their task team report was a conspiracy to evoke sympathy towards Pakistan cricket © AFP

Tuesday, 12th July
“The best man who walked the face of the earth never did anything wrong, but he was still crucified. And I am nowhere close to that.”

So now we know. Darren Sammy is not the Messiah. He can’t walk on water, but he does at least know how to get to the water and if you asked him, I’m sure he’d borrow a dinghy and row you across. He’s one of life’s triers. He doesn’t boast. He doesn’t score any runs. But he does at least give the impression that he quite likes being West Indies captain, which is always nice for Caribbean fans to hear.

And I know he isn’t quite good enough to be in the team, but there have been some very successful captains who weren’t quite good enough to be in the team. There was Mike Brearley, for example, and, well, the other ones, whose names escape me at the moment. Anyway, good luck Darren, I hope you succeed in your aim of getting West Indies into the top five by 2015, although it might depend on at least four of the other Test nations withdrawing from the ICC.

Wednesday, 13th July
We live in strange times, friends, and on days like these I feel particularly uneasy. But there’s no point shying away from it. Al Gore didn’t want to deal with the inconvenient truth, but he did it anyway. And if Al can do it, so can I. Here goes.

Today I read a story involving the PCB and found myself agreeing with them.

Yes, really. I know, but there it is. I think the PCB are correct. I’m right behind you Ijaz. Excuse me while I go for a quick lie-down.

What could possibly have led me to such a conclusion? Well, the Pakistan Task Team have produced recommendations for reform of the Pakistan cricket system. Jolly good thing, too, you might say. But then you read on. Apparently, only one member of the PTT had visited Pakistan, and that was because he caught the wrong plane. And neither of the two ambassadors for Pakistan have visited the place either.

Pakistan cricket may be poorly. But if you’re going to offer a cure, you should at least go and visit the patient. I’m a big fan of House, but I’m not sure the programme would have caught on if Hugh Laurie had done his diagnosing via email.

Thursday, 14th July
The News Of The World may be no more, but here at the Long Handle, we are keeping up the fine English tradition of sneaking about and getting our grubby hands on information we have no right to possess. Posing as an airline stewardess, I recently infiltrated an AirIndia flight to Heathrow and managed to swipe Duncan Fletcher’s SpongeBob SquarePants carry case.

Inside, I found a copy of Alan Border’s Fitness Programme, “Shed Pounds The Grumpy Way”; a good-luck card from Greg Chappell, 17 pairs of identical sunglasses and a highly confidential dossier, revealing the secrets of England’s top players. With this deadly dossier in their hands, the Indian team are certain to triumph this summer (even though they probably would have anyway). Here is just a selection of big Dunc’s inside info:

Kevin Pietersen: In my opinion, he could struggle against left-arm spin.
Stuart Broad: The lad has a bit of a temper.
Andrew Strauss: Posh. I believe he could be captain these days.
Alastair Cook: Can score a lot of runs if you don’t get him out.
Ian Bell: Short.
Matt Prior: He’s no Geraint Jones.
Ashley Giles:Retired.

"The club rule book said anyone who bowled above 45mph was welcome to play no matter what their past" © AFP

Tuesday, 7th June
The PCB moves in a mysterious way, its blunders to perform. Not so long ago, Ijaz Butt proposed an amendment to the ICC constitution, making possible the suspension of any cricket board that allowed political interference in its affairs. And a good thing too. Umar Gul doesn’t tell president Zardari who should be foreign minister, so why should El Presidente decide who gets to open the bowling.

It is such a good idea in fact, that the casual observer is immediately suspicious, the proposing of good ideas being not, as a rule, Mr Butt’s modus operandi. Perhaps it was the work of a rogue stunt double, hired to take the flak for Butty at public events. One who bluffed his way into an ICC meeting and went on a common-sense spree, running amok with dangerously sensible suggestions and alarmingly far-sighted ideas.

Anyway there is only one thing to do when your proposal is adopted and you realise you shouldn’t have proposed it in the first place. Sue the Butt off someone. And in the absence of any suitable candidate, the PCB chairman has today issued himself with a showcause notice, promising to drag himself through the highest court in the land if necessary. As a leaked memo from his office reveals, this brings the number of people against whom Ijaz has contemplated legal action into double figures:

1. Mr Shahid Afridi
2. Mr Shahid Afridi’s cat
3. The ICC
4. The ECB
5. The man who made that rotten biryani I ate last Friday
6. The tailor who keeps selling me those shrinking shirts
7. Mr Mike Gatting
8. Mr Henry Kissinger
9. Mr Elvis Presley
10. Mr Ijaz Butt

Wednesday, 8th June
I’d like Mohammad Amir to be given just one more chance. I wish he could be let off with just a tousling of his floppy hair and a proper talking-to, because I can remember what it was to be 18 and sillier than a coach full of inebriated clowns on a day trip to Euro Disney. But really, there are limits.

Club officials told you it was all right to play? By club officials, you mean the collection of accountants, small businessmen and retired farmers whose administrative duties extend to committee meetings once a month and organising the annual fund-raising quiz night? Are these people best placed to judge whether you might be violating your ICC ban? And isn’t listening to glib assurances that everything will be just fine precisely how you got into this mess in the first place?

Now his ban will probably be extended to dice cricket, the reading of Alastair Cook’s biographies and the forward propulsion of any vaguely spherical object, including tennis balls, oranges, pomegranates, rock cakes and ostrich eggs.

And for what? For the grubby thrills of the Surrey Cricket League Division One. For an hour or two running round a badly mown oval, where the claps of fielders ring out across an unpopulated boundary edge; where tailenders take it in turns to don the oversized umpires coat and lunch consists of soggy egg mayonnaise sandwiches, slices of Battenburg and lukewarm tea. Was it worth it?

Maybe it was. Maybe he just can’t keep away. Maybe it proves his love for the game, albeit in a forlorn, not-going-to-help-much-with-his-appeal kind of a way. Maybe it shows he’s human. Or maybe it just shows he’s a fool, after all.

“Fooled you again, didn’t I?” © AP

Saturday, 4th June
Shahid Afridi and the PCB are now officially in a state of feud and are settling it like men, the old-fashioned way: press releases and legal notices at dawn. Stopping Shahid from playing Twenty20 in England does have a hint of the playground about it. But then again, Afridi would try the patience of the most benevolent administrator. He is the boy (with the lovely hair) who cried resignation once too often.

So whose side are you on? It’s tricky, as Run DMC put it.

Though this revolution is timely, I’m not sure Afridi is the man to lead it. The Che Guevara of Pakistani cricket may look good on a t-shirt but he’s not the most reliable of figureheads around whom to rally. He is the embodiment of unpredictability. He lets you down, then he makes up for it, then he lets you down again. It's no coincidence that the founding members of the Afridi fan club all went grey years ago. As heroes go, he is from the shelf marked “flawed”.

On the other hand, he isn’t Ijaz Butt. Like I said, it’s tricky.

Sunday 5th June
Cricket Australia are toying with the idea of twilight play in some Sheffield Shield games next year. Not before time. It’s as timid as warm milk, but they’re reckless revolutionaries compared to the ICC. In most corners of their dominion, Test cricket has nearly ceased to be and is well on the way to being an ex-format. So what are they doing to reanimate it? We may, possibly, have some sort of Test championship playoff in 2013, a mere decade after the Test ratings were initiated. That’s about it.

How about day-nighters? Four-day Tests? Coloured clothing? Players’ names on the backs of their shirts? A slightly more robust approach to playing in the rain? A new ball every 40 overs? Sacrilege! Whilst (popular and profitable) 50-over cricket is fair game for all manner of wacky innovations and bizarre experiments, the five-day format must be perfectly preserved, like a museum exhibit, as the cobwebs accumulate and the spectators drift away in search of something more interesting.

But perhaps there is another angle. Maybe, instead of trying to find 21st-century solutions, we should seek inspiration from the past. I’m not talking compulsory beards, cravats or Bodyline (although there’s a lot to be said for all three). No other sport depends so much on the condition of the playing surface, so why not make a virtue of it and bring back the uncovered pitch? Hands up who wants to see how well Ian Bell or Thilan Samaraweera cope with a sticky dog at Old Trafford or a hard-baked turner in Chennai? Let’s make Test cricket a real test instead of a run-fest.

"... the spinners will go to Sri Lanka, the quicks to South Africa and the rest to the Champions League" © Getty Images

Tuesday, May 10th
The plot has thickened in Rajasthan. Someone or something, though more likely someone, told the chaps in electric blue that they had to play on pitch A and not pitch B. Just a few short hours later, they lost to Chennai. Coincidence? Probably. Chennai are better. But Warney reckons strange things are afoot. The BCCI say no team can choose which pitch to play on. Who’s telling the truth? Who knows? Who cares?

Let’s be honest, the great Jaipur pitch switch is a bit disappointing; the Delhi Daredevils of conspiracy theories. But it is a cunning way of explaining a Rajasthan thrashing. Warne is the cat burglar of excuses, pretending to be at a society party, whilst all the time Twittering his way over silent rooftops, slipping quietly through a window and leaving a card marked “The Blame” on the Jaipur groundsman’s pillow.

Wednesday, May 11th
Mr Ijaz Butt has spoken. In an interview with the Complacent Administration Monthly he announced that he had succeeded in eradicating “Player Power” - an undesirable state of affairs in which players have too much influence in Pakistan cricket, and has instituted “Butt Power” - an altogether more satisfactory arrangement in which a benevolent, grey-haired leader rules over the sport forever.

He also revealed that the PCB are planning to cash in on the sudden popularity of a small area of northern Pakistan. The Abottobad Premier League will feature franchises made up of locals, sightseers and journalists. Keiron Pollard has already signed up to play for two of the teams.

Thursday, May 12th
In unsurprising news today, Pope Benedict XVI made a statement confirming that he was still a strong adherent of the Catholic faith; the Forestry Commission announced the complete success of their campaign to encourage bear defecation in deciduous woodland; the earth was noted to have rotated once on its axis and Kevin Pietersen lost his wicket to a left-arm spinner.

Friday, May 13th
After research commissioned by Cricket Australia revealed that South Africa is not the same as Sri Lanka, Greg Chappell has announced a radical new selection policy. This year the selectors will be picking different squads for different tours, according to the prevailing conditions. Personally I think they’ve gone for the right option.

Those other options in full:

1. Pick the same squad for both tours regardless (“The Hilditch Option”)
2. Pick different squads for different tours but get them the wrong way round
3. Fail to pick a squad for either tour.

Wasim Bari (trusty Wrist-Slapper of Doom not in picture) © AFP

Saturday, 11th December
What is the key to defeating corruption in cricket? Tough sentences for those caught and convicted? Full disclosure of cricketers’ financial dealings and assets? Nope. The secret, apparently, is education. So the PCB have assigned to Wasim Bari the vital task of explaining to Pakistani cricketers that it is wrong to take money in exchange for fixing the results of cricket matches.

The PCB have spared no expense in backing Bari with a hard-hitting poster campaign. Designed by Ijaz Butt’s great-grandson and utilising the latest in wax-colouration technology, the poster features a cartoon cricketer receiving a bundle of money from a suspicious looking man in a fedora. Below this startling visual representation of all that is wrong with the modern game is printed the word, “Bad” in bold capitals.

And Mr Bari has an uncompromising message for the cricketers of Pakistan:

“It has never been acceptable for players to get involved in fixing, apart from when it was, but it certainly isn’t anymore, not even if you don’t get caught.”

Sunday, 12th December
Following the revelation that Nathan Hauritz has sold some of his cricket memorabilia in a fit of pique, Cricket Australia have retaliated by putting Hauritz up for sale on eBay, along with an assortment of discarded spinners including a Krezja, a Doherty, a Casson and a McGain.

The full listing describes the job lot of offspinners, left-armers and leggies as:

“Unwanted selections, barely used, some slight wear and tear around the edges. Would make lovely gift for struggling village cricket team. Could also make eye-catching garden ornaments or theatrical dummies for West End. Baggy green caps and lingering feeling of resentment included.”

Monday, 13th December
Michael Beer isn’t the only new face in the Australian squad. Johnson Mitchell is an exciting prospect: a dashing young fast bowler known for his immaculate dental hygiene and uncanny ability to land at least three balls an over on the cut strip. The young lad apparently celebrated his call-up by getting a tattoo of a pitch drawn on his left forearm, featuring helpful arrows indicating where to bowl.

One or two irresponsible journalists have suggested that Johnson Mitchell bears an uncanny resemblance to Aussie reject and all-round no-hoper Mitchell Johnson, an accusation that Andrew Hilditch, wearing a foil hat, was quick to refute.

“Mitchell Johnson is a failed pie-chucker who simply cannot be relied upon in a crucial Ashes battle; he is a luxury we can’t afford. Johnson Mitchell, on the other hand, is a deadly fast bowler who will cause the English batsmen sleepless nights, particularly since we had that radar device fitted to his cranium.”

Tuesday, 14th December
The news that the 96-year-old politician and part-time spinner Sanath Jayasuriya has been selected for Sri Lanka’s provisional World Cup squad has drawn a swift response from the ICC’s Dignity Department.

“Mr Jayasuriya hasn’t reached double figures since 2007 and this selection is a violation of his human rights, specifically, his right not to be forced to embarrass himself in public We all remember watching Mike Gatting lumbering out to bat in 1993 and surely no one wants to see a repeat of those horrific scenes.”

However, a delighted Jayasuriya has stated that he hopes to be in contention for the 2015 tournament and, dodgy hip permitting, the 2019 and 2023 editions as well.

“You’re only as young as you feel,” quipped the elderly bat-swisher, “And I don’t feel a day over 67.”

Too late Mickey Arthur realised as his molars cracked that the aliens had tampered with his toffee © Getty Images

Wednesday, 3rd November
The head of some company or other responsible for producing a kind of digital whatchamacallit today tried to reassure reluctant Indian cricketers that there is nothing to be scared of, that everything is perfectly safe.

“We need to spend time with umpires and players, captains of teams, so that we can open up the entire Pandora’s box of the technology…”

I’m not sure this is a great sales pitch. Pandora’s box, as we know, was a container reputed to contain all the plagues, evils and diseases of the world, which, once released, could never be returned. No wonder Sachin wants nothing to do with it.

Thursday, 4th November
According to our chums with the laptops and laminated passes, Marcus North is either clinging on to his Test spot by his fingernails or about to be made captain, or possibly both. Furthermore the Australian dressing room is riven with infighting and yet, at the same time, the epitome of loving harmony; whilst Michael Clarke, depending on which paper you read, is a commanding leader of great sagacity and authority or an incompetent fool who can barely be trusted to arrange his knife and fork, let alone a 5-4 field.

It’s all rather baffling for the humble cricket fan, but fortunately help is at hand. The Department of Frivolous Algebra at the University of Fake Science have today explained this strange phenomenon with a useful formula:

Hype = X (Y*Z)

in which X is an event of no significance*, Y is a variable representing the number of journalists who have blagged a holiday to Australia, and Z represents the amount of time said journalists have on their hands once they get there.

In this case it appears that the operation of the Hype Equation is resulting in the inflation of a mid-ranking struggle between an ordinary yet inconsistent team and their inconsistent yet ordinary opponents into the greatest sporting clash since Ali versus Foreman. Meanwhile numbers 1 and 2 in the Test rankings are limbering up for a three-match series in December. Hype anyone? Apparently not.

Friday, 5th November
It seems that South Africans are not yet fully conversant with one of the great literary genres. A cricket autobiography is supposed to be a tiresome collection of dressing-room pranks interspersed with golfing stories, lists of scores and excuses. It is designed to be a birthday present, a draught excluder, a coffee table filler, or if it is large enough, a useful hurling implement with which to stun a charging rhinoceros. It is not, however, intended to be in any way interesting or readable.

Yet last week Herschelle Gibbs released his unputdownable tale of sex, cliques and rock and roll. And now we have a taster of former coach Mickey “Micky” Arthur’s contribution to sporting literature, a manuscript so dangerous that it has already provoked the threat of legal action from the PCB. The passage of the book that has stimulated Ijaz Butt’s sue-reflex relates to a one-day game back in 2007, a game Pakistan lost. As we all now know, match-fixing, spot-fixing or associated general naughtiness is the only possible explanation for a Pakistan defeat:

“How else do you explain a batting side needing only 40 runs with seven wickets in hand and still losing?”

How else indeed, Mickey. Of course it could just have been that Pakistan didn’t play very well. But, hey, who wants to pay R154 to read about that?

* Such as, for example, the news that some guy in a hotel bar reckons he heard some bloke say that he had it on good authority from his uncle’s first wife that a geezer who’d been to school with Ricky Ponting’s cousin met a woman who might have been Greg Chappell’s cleaner, who swore blind that she heard Marcus North or someone who looks very much like him say that he’d like to be Australian captain.

Eoin Morgan and Stuart Broad enact their prize-winning karaoke rendition of “(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight” © Getty Images

Saturday, 16th October
PCB head honcho Ijaz “Asbestos” Butt today held an emergency press conference to respond to the ultimatum issued by the ICC. The Long Handle was in the front row holding a recording device.

“First of all, men of the press, you are wrong to call it an ultimatum. There was more than one ultimatum, so you will see, according to the Latin we should be talking about ultimata, not ultimatum,” he announced triumphantly. “This, in my opinion, is typical of the way the media misrepresent the facts.

“Secondly, as you can see, the paper upon which the ICC has printed these ultimata is from a non-sustainable source. Again, this is typical of the way these shadowy bodies go about their business. How many mahogany trees were felled to produce this paper? Do you know? Do I know? Rest assured, I have launched an investigation and will be handing the file over to Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth, I haven’t decided which.

“Finally, if anyone here doubts that I am doing a good job, they should read what it says on this handwritten note I received from my good friend, Mr President Zardari. ‘Dear Butty. Congratulations on being the most unpopular man in Pakistan. I would be personally delighted if you could continue to fill this position for many months to come or until the next election, whichever comes first. Yours with gratitude, Big Al.’”

Sunday, 17th October
Fast-medium ball-flinger Stuart Broad today interrupted his weekly session with the ECB’s anger management therapist to explain his approach to fast bowling:

“I’m a passionate kind of person. Passion is my middle name. And aggression. Aggression and passion are my middle names. I want to be passionate enough to make the batsman scared, but not so aggressive that I split my trousers; yet at the same time aggressive enough to put myself on the line, but not so passionate that I step over the line; which would be a no ball.”

Monday, 18th October
Excellent news for long-suffering Pakistan cricket fans, but not for those of us who appreciate slapstick comedy. It appears that Misbah’s chaps will be “concentrating on fielding” ahead of their jaunt to the UAE. However, their intensive schedule will not involve cricket balls, running around outdoors or risking nasty little bruises on the knuckles, as coach Waqar explained:

“Practising is so last year. When I say my boys will be concentrating on fielding, I mean they will be doing literally that - sitting cross-legged on comfy cushions with their eyes closed, imagining what it feels like to be Jonty Rhodes.”

“Good fielding comes from within,” said chairman of selectors Mohsin Khan. “Plus, it’s a lot cheaper to imagine being Jonty Rhodes than to actually hire him.”

Tuesday, 19th October
As we all know, the ICC never sleeps in its efforts to root out corruption and they have come up with yet another jolly clever wheeze to catch out naughty cricketers. A dozen of their finest clerks will be seconded from filing duty, equipped with false moustaches and parachuted into hotel bars in key locations on the cricket circuit, where they will sidle up to unwary professionals and offer them cash to fix matches.

Obviously there are certain legal considerations in a sting operation of this sort. For a start, the ICC can’t be seen to be offering cash to players, so the pretend bookmakers will be issued with wads of $500 currency notes from Haroon Lorgat’s personal Monopoly set. And to avoid allegations of entrapment, when striking up a conversation with a player, the undercover ICC agent will be obliged to wear a badge that says “Undercover ICC Agent”.