Demons in the pitch? Freddie v Jason, no doubt © Getty Images

Wednesday, 11th January
How best to describe Sri Lanka’s batting today? Mere words can only begin to convey the wretchedness of their willow-wafting. It was more horrifying than Rick Santorum wearing a Newt Gingrich mask; messier than the state of Italy’s finances, and uglier to watch than the unveiling of the new pavilion at Headingley.

But not, I suspect, as ugly as the mood of the ordinary Sri Lankan spectator who has been asked to swallow an awful lot of ineptitude of late and who might be starting to suspect that the phrase “We’re in transition” is in fact top sports administrator code for “Help, we really don’t know what to do without Murali!”

And just what is it with the modern batsman? Accustomed to nice, well-behaved pitches, where the bounce is always ankle height and the runs flow easy, he turns into a dainty, timorous creature when faced with deliveries that deviate a millimetre from a straight line or which threaten to bounce up and tickle his tummy.

Sri Lanka’s ineptitude was summed up by Lasith Malinga. In Twenty20 World, a quick 30 from the Slinger can be the game. But faced with the need to hit a quick 270, his methods proved less effective. Going down on one knee, he swung mightily, as though trying to get them all in one shot. Naturally, he missed.

Thursday, 12th January
There is a lot of speculation ahead of India’s defeat in Perth about what kind of team they are going to pick. I have no inside knowledge, but experience leads me to suggest that the kind of team they will pick will be one that looks good on paper, sets off with purpose, gets within sniffing distance of the outskirts of victory, then wanders off to sit in a field making daisy chains before falling asleep under a bush.

You know, the usual.

But MS Dhoni, a man who can rival Chris Gayle in the unflappable/laidback/not-appearing-to-be-all-that-bothered-actually stakes, is in a philosophical mood.

“You lose a few series, you lose a few games. As long as you are competing, it is good.”

It rather depends. If by “competing” he means, “turning up and running about a bit like it says we have to do in our BCCI contracts” then yes, India have been competing. But it’s not the kind of competing that we might expect from a team that was No. 1 not so long ago. But hang on. Is there another reason for their poor efforts?

“In England, we weren’t really there, so we didn’t perform to our potential.”

What do you mean, you weren’t really there? Is this just sportsman’s speak, a derivation of the cliché about parties? You know the one: “We didn’t come to the party, so obviously we didn’t get a go on the karaoke machine or have a chance to sample the buffet or get to show off our dance moves and we don’t know who did what with whom at the party, which is disappointing, but hopefully we will be invited to the party next time.”

Or was Dhoni being literal. What if he has accidentally let the feline out of the holdall? What if they really weren’t there in England and they aren’t there in Australia either? Perhaps, worn out by the excessive demands of their fans/accountants/agents, they’ve taken these series off and sent in their place a plausible cast of doubles, impersonators and, in the case of VVS, a realistically dressed mannequin.

It would explain a lot.

Rahul Dravid disapproves of the ball's persistent attempts to kiss the stumps as if it will turn into a prince © Getty Images

Thursday, 29th December
Last week, Sri Lanka looked like a contingent of nervous schoolboys who’d just discovered they’d been booked to fight the lions in the Coliseum. But as any Roman Coliseum-goer would tell you, lions are notoriously inconsistent performers; savage powerful beasts one day; harmless sleepy pussycats the next.

And today, the Sri Lankans had the home side lying on their backs with their legs in the air, having their tummies tickled. The defining moment came when Big Jacques, who never gets a double pair, got a double pair; diverting the ball onto his helmet from where it rebounded with the dismal clunk of failure into the palms of short leg.

As the probability of defeat became a certainty, I watched a succession of South Africans miss a succession of straightish ones in a parade of increasing ineptitude until Marchant de Lange’s bails exploded and the Sri Lankans began whooping and screaming like I would do if I’d won the lottery after having been widely ridiculed for my inability to pick a single correct number in the last six months.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hemisphere, Australia and India were doing their bit to undermine confidence in the batting industry with some shots that were so ugly that if they’d occurred in Victorian times, they would have been featured in a Travelling Show of Hideous Freaks. Apparently responsible batsmen appeared incapable of coping with the hint of a rumour of a suggestion of lateral movement.

Why should this be? It is generally accepted that pitches don’t talk, but if they did, the strip at the MCG would probably say something like this: “Don’t blame me, mate, I didn’t do anything. I’m not even wearing any grass today. And stop spitting on me. You don’t see me expelling unpleasant fluids on Ricky Ponting’s boots, so why’s he got to dribble all over me? Bloody hooligans! Players of today got no respect.”

First, Australia, having pocketed a lead, attempted to commit cricket suicide by inside-edging themselves to death and at 27 for 4 were tottering like a tray of full champagne glasses being carried by a blindfolded waiter on rollerblades down a freshly polished marble staircase. Then Ponting and Hussey slapped the innings vigorously about the face, told it to pull itself together and batted properly for a bit.

They were helped by the fact that India continue to take the lazy angler approach to the business end of Test matches. They may have the opposition on the hook, but they really can’t be bothered to reel them in. Set just about enough to win, Dravid, who never gets bowled twice in a match, was bowled for the second time in the match and India collapsed softly like a sponge cake left out in the rain.

Still, I’m not complaining. This global batting crisis makes for thrilling cricket. Hopefully we’re in for a Great Batting Depression, in which centuries are rarer than cliché-free cricket commentary and wickets always fall at the rate of five a session.

Friday, 30th December
Without David Warner, the Thunderers of Sydney have only Gayle to bring the big hits at the top of the innings. But this is not a problem. Bangalore managed to almost win the Champions League with a team sheet consisting of Gayle and 10 somebody-or-others so there’s no reason to fear for the fate of the fluorescent green team.

And even though I’ve seen it several hundred times before, the Gayle repertoire still causes me to stop and stare. Today he hit a six off Shaun Tait, with no follow-on worth mentioning, that looked like a bored golfer hitting a nine iron onto the green or a retired colonel half-heartedly dead-heading his rose bush with a walking stick.

As is traditional on these occasions, the bowler was pictured trudging back from whence he came looking more rueful than a rue seller returning from a bad day at the market. Other bowlers tried different tactics. Shane Harwood tried swearing in the general direction of the ball, but that didn’t work either. This is the way with Twenty20 Gayle. Either he gets himself out, or you lose the game.

Shahid goes bananas. Again. How dreary © Getty Images

Saturday, 17th December
I enjoy a good batting collapse. It’s like the final act of a Jacobean play, when the bodies start piling up and the plot gallops on. But like the eye-gouging scene in King Lear, it can be brutal, and I bet there are a few Sri Lankan fans who watched the denouement in Centurion through the gaps between their fingers.

Paranavitana’s plight was particularly sad. Having witnessed the demise of his captain, he spent most of his 32 minutes at the crease attempting to play at an imaginary ball that was always two inches away from the real ball. In the end he was out to an edge that was almost impossible for human senses to detect.

This was a recurring theme in the second innings; some of the dismissals were the nickiest nicks I’ve ever seen. Only just making contact like that takes real skill. Perhaps now that the ICC is going to pay the Sri Lankan players 46% of their wages, they might manage to get 46% of the bat on the ball.

Sunday, 18th December
Although cricket coverage is pretty comprehensive these days, sometimes even the most dedicated fan is forced to rely on highlights. Better than nothing, of course, but they still leave you unsatisfied. It’s like being shown photographs of the best bits of a Rembrandt, or in the case of the BBL, half a Jackson Pollock.

This weekend I’ve seen seven minutes of Aussie action and I’m left with memories of fleeting and unconnected images of games I haven’t actually watched, some of them vaguely hallucinatory. Did I really see the ball for the Scorchers game being delivered by helicopter and carried out by a man in uniform? Has the credit crunch hit the Australian sports industry so hard that a ball needs an armed escort?

I’m sure I saw Afridi play one shot, but it was the one that goes straight up in the air, not the one that sails over long-on. And though Australian scientists have worked miracles to get Shaun Tait, or at least a cyborg constructed from parts of Shaun Tait, onto the field, his limb-flailing run-up is more ungainly than ever. If he were a racehorse, you’d say he definitely didn’t act on the going.

Naturally there were a lot of sixes, but frankly, after you’ve seen David Warner launch the ball over long-off once, you’ve seen it a thousand times. The Little Farmer brings the fireworks, for sure, but you can only crane your neck, peer into the sky and say, “Wow, look that!” so many times before you start looking at your watch.

And this is the sole drawback to Twenty20. A six should be as surprising as a slap in the face with a wet fish; it should be as shocking as a swear word in the middle of a church sermon. But now every player worth his salt is clearing his leg out of the way and sending everything aerial into that straight-of-midwicket corridor of predictability.

Watch too much Twenty20 and you begin to yearn for a half-timed cover drive or a carefully placed leg glance for a well-run two; anything but another full length ball launched back over the sight screen.

The penultimate delivery on the final highlights package I saw was Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal. After clubbing six boundaries, he had a half-hearted waft at Johan Botha and holed out lazily at mid-on. It was the weary swing of a man who had slogged and slogged but could slog no more.

"Yes, I have just been smashed on the nose by a leather ball. Yes, it hurts like hell. Yes, I do feel a bit light-headed, but really, it's just a scratch" © Getty Images

Thursday, 15th December
Ouch! I’ve never faced Steyn and Philander on a green wicket but I imagine it’s not the most congenial way to spend a Thursday afternoon. After an hour or two of watching hard leathery ball smack repeatedly into Sri Lankan rib cage I was starting to wince, and I’m 3000 miles away. I expect tomorrow I’ll wake up covered in sympathy bruises with an overactive duck reflex.

Still, I do think it’s time for Sri Lankan cricket to have a rethink. In this day and age, you simply can’t expect unpaid amateurs to hold their own against professionals.

Friday, 16th December
I haven’t yet been able to find a place to watch the Big Bash League so I don’t know what the opening ceremony was like. I’m guessing cheerleaders, fireworks, enormous papier mâché Richie Benaud heads parading around the outfield on stilts, a hologram of Donald Bradman giving the whole thing his blessing and James Sutherland wearing an Australian flag skydiving onto the pitch from a Martian spacecraft.

The usual kind of stuff.

I did manage to find highlights of the game on the tournament website, although I was a little disappointed to find that the entire three-hour experience had been boiled down to 2:58 minutes. And then my teeth began to itch as I was forced to watch two excessively hair-gelled presenters throwing away 25 seconds of valuable highlight time by giving us a précis of the already edited action.

And what did we see through this tiny window on BBL World?

Well, I saw Brett Lee looking mean, followed by Brendon McCullum bleeding casually in that manly way that men who can’t see themselves bleeding can pull off. Had the physio brought out a mirror along with his sponge, I reckon Brendon would have been swooning onto the turf faster than a Victorian lady who has just found out that her daughter is eloping with the chimney-sweep.

I saw grey-haired Stuart MacGill roaring like a whiskery old lion who has just outrun all the younger cubs in the pride to haul down a wildebeest (although to be honest, Matthew was straggling badly at the back of the herd and is a bit long in the hoof these days.) I saw some evil-looking slogs that were so scandalously wrong I had to pop into church for extra confession afterwards.

And I was pleased to note a raising of the quality bar from the men in the booth. One commentator specified that a particular six had gone straight into row 15. Not 14 or 16, you’ll note, but 15. That’s precision commentary and a challenge to Mr Shastri, who can’t be bothered to count the rows but instead tries to convince us of the existence of a mythical “Row Z”.

So to summarise: bleeding, slogging, sixes and oldies. Not a bad 2:35 minutes worth of entertainment. Keep it up, Mr Sutherland and I might even be persuaded to buy a Perth Scorchers tea cosy. (“Keeps your teapot Scorching hot!”)

The PCB's committee that decides the number of Akmals to appear in each game © PCB

Wednesday, 30th November
As Sri Lankan cricket’s temporary cash-flow crisis enters its 214th day, there’s good news for Tillakaratne, Kumar and friends, who have taken to living under the covers at the Premadasa Stadium, eating grass cuttings and burning Mahela’s spare bats to keep warm. The politicians are on the case.

“The sports ministry is making arrangements to resolve this issue,” said a man in a suit. “The players will be paid very soon. They need not worry.”

I suspect that if I hadn’t been paid since April, I would long ago have abandoned worry, worked my way steadily through perturbation, consternation, despair and hysteria and would by now be angrier than Jade Dernbach when he discovered that Craig Kieswetter had stolen the last wildebeest sausage at England’s annual braai.

It’s true that SLC doesn’t have a lot of spare cash at the moment, but that is not the players’ concern. Last spring I was a little short myself as I was waiting on an unpaid debt (I’d confessed to a friend that watching Sky’s cricket coverage often drove me to blasphemy and he’d wagered that he could endure a whole weekend of Gower and Botham without resorting to that kind of language. In the end, he did 20 minutes.)

Anyway, until he could stump up the money from his congregation, I was left in a bit of a hole, gas-bill wise. So I laid it all out to a cheerful sounding chap at the GasCorp call centre, assuring him that payment was most definitely imminent and that he was not to worry. At this news, he lost his call-handling joie de vivre, turned decidedly frosty and began to prophesise all manner of dire consequences of a legal nature.

And with hindsight, I can see his point. So it’s a minor miracle that Dilshan and chums have not yet downed bats, face guards and athletic supports and staged a sit-in, followed by a march around the outfield bearing placards. But then, perhaps I’m missing something. Perhaps their recent on-pitch debacles were a kind of protest and a pretty tasty threat too: pay up, SLC or the defeats keep on coming.

Thursday, 1st December
The first PCB get-together of the post-Butt era was a great success. Everyone who is anyone in Pakistan cricket was there, Ramiz had a new hairdo, and a splendid time was had by all. Many of those present had fallen out with old Ijaz for one reason or another and hadn’t visited PCB Towers for months, so there was much catching up to do, and I have it on good authority that the gossip was of the juiciest quality.

In fact the whole affair turned into something of an epic. It lasted nine hours and we know this because they were trying out the new Alastair Cook egg timer, designed to measure interminable intervals of time. The device was upturned when Mr Ashraf politely coughed to signal play and by the time a third administrator had passed out and the meeting was declared closed, only half of the sand had fallen from the top of Alastair’s glass leg glance into Alastair’s glass boots.

Sadly, there was no time to decide on a new coach but there was an agreement in principle to create a committee to look into streamlining the committee-creation process, and a meeting was pencilled in for next month to discuss the desirability of monthly meetings.

Friday, 2nd December
With a late entry for the 2011 Superfluous Sacrifice Award, Samit Patel has ruled himself out of next year’s IPL auction. He’s not the only one. I’ve also excused myself, as have the Dalai Lama, Newt Gingrich, the racehorse Kauto Star, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Mrs Ethel Makepeace of 17, Elder Grove, Nantwich, who has a lot of knitting to get on with ahead of next April’s trip to Eastbourne and so has had to reluctantly decline an imaginary offer of $2m dollars from Rajasthan.

Lasith Malinga helps out at the macaroni and fusili pasta section of Colombo's gourmet stores © Getty Images

Wednesday, 2nd November
Something strange is afoot. Back at the soggy end of September, Graeme Swann suggested that West Indies hadn’t bowled well enough to dismiss England for 88. And yet the scoreboard read, “England 88 all out”. Mysterious. And now history has repeated itself. “They hardly got us out,” said Bangladeshi captain Mushfiqur Rahim, after some bowlers or other had dismissed the Tigers for 278.

Every time West Indies roll into town, the home team suddenly and mysteriously begin losing wickets. What is going on? Is it a conspiracy? Have the men from the Caribbean finally managed to incorporate Klingon cloaking technology, making Marlon Samuels invisible to the naked eye? Or could it be that they’ve found a decent bowling attack and the rest of the world is being a little ungracious?

Thursday, 3rd November
Give praise to the god of satire, for Afridi is back! His unconditional unretirement (slight return) means that the cricket world is approximately 10% more interesting in real terms. So how have you been keeping, Shahid?

"I am strong, fit and in good shape to cover the wild period I had lost during the time of retirement.”

Wild period? Sounds intriguing. Tell us more about this wild period. Did you grow dreads and journey across Outer Mongolia in a beat-up multicoloured camper van? Did you have a tattoo of a man eating a cricket ball with the legend “Lala likes leather for lunch” across your upper back? Did you spend some time in the jungles of Borneo, learning how the orangutan deals with the outswinger?

Oh, you played for Hampshire. Well, that’s pretty wild, I guess. But his return to the one-day squad was not a formality and as always, the Pakistan selection committee carefully weighed up the pros and cons in an objective and dispassionate manner.

“He is like a son to me,” said interim selector Mohammad Ilyas, “And his selection is not unfair.”

Friday, 4th November
Colossal fiscal incompetence is everywhere it seems, so we shouldn’t be surprised to see cricket boards following the fashion for financial stupidity. Our old friends, SLC built a lot of grounds that they couldn’t afford to run and so, naturally enough, have handed them over to the military. I’m not entirely sure what the military would want with cricket stadiums, though if the SLPL ever happens, I guess Ravi could have fun spotting sponsored Abrams tanks and F16s rather than the accursed blimp.

But it isn’t just the stadiums that SLC are offloading. Many of the players are being handed over local businesses as the board can no longer afford to run them either. Kumar Sangakkara will be working for a Mrs De Silva of Market Street, Colombo, shouting out the prices at her fruit and vegetable stall; Mahela Jayawardene will be employed as a street sweeper by Galle District Council, tidying up the mess that others have left (similar to his current role) and Ajantha Mendis will be placed in storage at the Kandy Museum of Mystery, though may not be picked for every exhibition.

Donkeys have been a natural and integral part of cricket since the Chappell-Ganguly era at least © AFP

Saturday, 3rd September
You’ve got to feel for MS Dhoni. We’ve all had holidays like this. Trapped in a caravan, a tent or a four-star hotel, surrounded by the same old faces, going slowly insane with nothing to do but watch Alastair Cook bat for weeks at a time, listening to everyone complaining about their aches and pains, and counting the days till it’s time to go home. And then, just when it seems things might be looking up, it starts to rain.

I can remember following England tours that scored just as high on the angstometer, in which the only sounds you heard were the clatter of wickets, the roar of the home crowd, and the stamping of passports as another batch of trembling replacements arrived at immigration control. As it happens, Nasser Hussain and his fragile fingers featured in many of those tours, so you’d think he would understand the tourists’ pain. Instead, his loose talk of donkeys has caused the summer’s third “Gate”.

But it isn’t always a good idea to take cricket folk literally. When KP called Graeme Smith a muppet, he didn’t mean that he believed the South African captain was made of cloth and operated by strings. When a commentator tells us that Sehwag has launched himself at a short one, he is not implying that rocket fuel was involved. Then there are the phrases like “impetuous hooker” and “flashing outside off stump” that could lead to all kinds of litigious misunderstanding if they were taken literally.

So in the interests of international harmony, here’s another, more positive interpretation of Nasser’s agricultural metaphor. A field is, after all, where a donkey belongs. Therefore the phrase, “he’s a donkey in the field” simply means “to be in his element” or “to feel at home” and is an adaptation of the well-known saying, often heard in the villages of rural Essex: “He’s as happy as a donkey in a field.”

Monday, 5th September
The pitch at Galle was dryer than a dry gin in the Gobi desert and dustier than the trophy cabinet at Sahara Smiles, the world’s least successful synchronised swimming team. The ball was doing sneaky things from day one and batting was as tricky as trying to tiptoe through a snake pit in the dark. Which is precisely how it should be.

A Test run should be a hard-won thing, a precious jewel wrestled from the teeth of an angry clam at the bottom of a piranha infested lagoon*. Instead, we are currently in a period of rampant inflation, in which the value of the Test run has plummeted. A double-century in 2011 would be worth 150 back in 2001, whilst an Alastair Cook accumulatorathon translates as a pretty little thirty-something cameo at 1930 prices.

So do we celebrate this triumph? Do the powers that be initiate The Most Noble Order of the Gracious Groundsmen and give the Galle curator a yacht, a lifetime’s supply of broom handles and a complimentary Test century? Nope.

Chris Broad (a batsman, let it be noted) refers the venue to the ICC’s Department Of No Fun. Next spring, the Galle pitch will be flatter than the M25, England will declare on 750, Jayawardene will score a triple-century, and the crowd will need to be woken up at the end of the fifth day to remind him to go home. Sometimes I think the ICC don’t really want people to watch Test cricket.

*Marine biologists may query one or two of the details in this metaphor. However, I would refer them to the renowned documentary series, Spongebob Squarepants which is, as we are all aware, the authority on matters aquatic.

Ajantha Mendis: Kept safely out of the opposition's way so no one can work him out © Getty Images

Wednesday, 31st August
Don’t ever gamble, readers, it is a perilous and painful business, as risky and as futile a pastime as setting fire to your hair and standing in the garden waiting for it to rain. It is like putting a five-pound note into a post box in the hope that it will somehow be delivered back to you and that in the meantime it will have turned into a ten-pound note. At least it is the way I do it.

The failed gambler always has an accomplice, a stooge who can take all the blame. Today his name was Virat. It is a shame when a career that promised so much takes such a disappointing turn. I feel a lump in my throat when I remember watching the wee fella scoring all those runs for the Royal Challengers Bangalore. One day, I thought, one day, I’ll bet on you to top score for India in a meaningless Twenty20 game in the north west of England.

And today his moment had come. What better opportunity for him to emblazon his name across Duncan Fletcher’s frontal lobes than to top-score for India (at 5-1.) So what happened? Nudge, nudge, nudge, swipe, oh dear. There are some things in life you should never try to pull: Steven Seagal’s ponytail; a hippopotamus through a revolving door and a ball short and wide outside the off stump unless you are Viv Richards. Are you Viv Richards, Virat? No, you are not. Don’t do it again.

Thursday, 1st September
The mystery of Sri Lanka’s Mendis-phobia is frankly mystifying. The man formerly known as the most exciting spin bowler in the world is now more or less permanently languishing in the Johnny Gleeson Wing of the One-Trick Pony Retirement Home.

He was to be the skittler-in-chief in Sri Lanka’s demolishing of Australia. Instead, his record of squad superfluousness means he is in danger of becoming the new Adil Rashid.

The Sri Lankan selectors seem worried that batsmen will work him out. Well yes, they might. Some of them already have. But in the meantime he might pick up a wicket or two. He might even get better with experience. He averages 32.48 which is only 0.48 worse than Stuart Broad and 1.91 worse than James Anderson, who is, as we all know the new Dennis Lillee.

Instead, in order to ensure their impact spinner doesn’t lose his impact, they are going to keep him in his packaging like an unwanted birthday present. So today we had the spectacle of Sri Lanka, with a mystery spinner up their sleeve, being skittled out by the other team’s mystery spinner, who isn’t really a mystery spinner, but is a spinner who proved something of a mystery to the home side. It’s all very confusing.

Friday, 2nd September
Earlier this summer we learned that Hotspot was rubbish. Now Simon Taufel, umpiring superhero, is to refer Phil Hughes’ Hawk-Eye-aided dismissal to the ICC’s Hindsight Committee on the grounds that it looks a bit dodgy to the naked eye and can we really trust this gizmo anyway. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Technology was going to sort everything out. Instead, it is getting horrendously complicated.

We have applied the tin opener of accuracy to the can of decision-making, and now our cricket kitchen is full of worms. Accuracy is like a drug - 96% was okay last year, but the accuracy addict always wants more. Hawk-Eye was fine, we thought we could handle it, but now it doesn’t give us enough of a buzz, we want more, shinier, faster technology, which not everyone will want to use straightaway and which will anyway turn out to be less than 100% accurate and will in turn need to be replaced and so on.

So I have an alternative. We simply need to clone Taufel, who is as accurate as Hawk-Eye and doesn’t even need to be plugged in. An elite panel of Taufels will then be able to umpire the whole international calendar to a high standard. And we could have a wardrobe full of Aleem Dars standing by, just in case.

RP Singh is ecstatic when he finds out the new Kochi owners are looking at Ronald McDonald as the inspiration for the uniforms © AFP

Tuesday, 5th July
Chris Gayle and Kumar Sangakkara have a lot in common. They are supremely talented players whose careers have been interrupted by lesser men. But they are dealing with it in different ways. Chris composed a moving piece in 33 paragraphs based around variations on a theme (the theme being “It’s Not Fair”). Kumar looked further than his own future and made an eloquent and impassioned plea for the reform of Sri Lanka’s cricket establishment.

And the response of Sri Lanka’s sports minister to these thoughtful, reasoned and articulate remarks? He stuck to the code of administrators worldwide, cranked up the pomposity dial to maximum and let off some self-righteous steam. The most significant thing he noted about the speech? That Kumar should have sought permission from the board in order to criticise the board.

But this is worse than just a few more puffed-up men in suits and fancy moustaches, stroking their egos. This is corruption we’re talking about, you know, that “very bad thing” that we were all so determined to root out a few months ago. Have we forgotten about that? Or is corruption only a problem when it involves players?

Wednesday, 6th July
Exciting developments, franchise watchers: the Kochi Katastrophes might be for sale! This news had me rooting down the back of my sofa for small change and ringing my elderly relatives to persuade them to invest their life savings. Having supported the purpley-tangerines in their debut season, only to see them blow it in a series of let-downs, flops and disasters, I thought I might as well buy the thing and sort them out.

And they can’t be that expensive. They finished eighth. They barely have any sponsors. Their gate revenue was puny, they couldn’t get a new stadium built and their shirts are revolting. Surely they’ll be going for a knock-down price? What’s that? US$ 333.33 million? Hmm. Well how much for Sreesanth’s head band?

Friday, 8th July
Things are getting out of hand in the shires. The wickets are littered with dummies and the county championship’s traditional soundtrack of four hands clapping is being drowned out by John McEnroe-style protests and language that would make a Premier League footballer’s mistress blush.

So what is going on in snoozy-time land? Are they putting something in the tea? Are there bonus points available in the championship this year for petulance, swearing and generally carrying on like a three-year-old on a long car journey? No. The Professional Cricketers Association believes the problem is twofold. First, the DRS is to blame. The players, having watched cricket on telly, want to emulate their heroes, but when they make those cool T-shapes in a county game, nothing happens. Naturally, they become disillusioned.

The second problem is slightly duller and has to do with some kind of umpiring feedback thingy. The PCA’s head Nursery School Supervisor explained:

“I think it's important that the players have a mechanism for giving feedback and that they have the confidence in it so that they don't get frustrated.”

The poor dears.

But why exactly are players commenting on umpires? Do schoolchildren fill in questionnaires rating the performance of their headmaster? Umpires are not in the service industry; they don’t need to be sensitive to the needs of their clients. They are enforcers. They are there because: a) the players can’t be trusted to play nicely and b) the players don’t know the rules.

I suggest that, in addition to fines, bans and stiff talkings-to, errant pros should be forced to write, “I must not undermine the umpire’s authority,” a hundred times on the pavilion blackboard. And an hour or two on the naughty step wouldn’t hurt either.

"Look Stu, you can't complain to the umpire about the ugliness of Dilshan's facial hair " © PA Photos

Sunday, 3rd July
Tillakaratne says he’s disappointed at how his chaps went about pulverising England at Lord’s. Absolutely right. Poor show Mr Mathews, you made Cook and chums look awfully silly.

On the other hand, it was quite funny. And it did bring a little pulse quickening to the closing overs of a one-sided encounter. You could hardly blame Chandimal and Mathews. They are entertainers. If England weren’t going to put a fight, they had to do something to give the spectators their money’s worth.

And I don’t know what England’s problem was. That Sri Lanka could have won in 44 overs but instead they won in 49? Really, they had nothing to complain about, but that didn’t stop them. Led by Peter Pietersen the Petulant Pouter, they managed to extract maximum sulkage from the situation. Their expressions at the end of the game were so sour they could have curdled milk.

How has this happened? Losing with dignity used to be the only thing England were any good at. Now they’re rapidly climbing the ICC Whining Rankings. And their most exciting young complainer is Stuart “It’s Not Fair” Broad, the man with the fastest whinge reflex in the modern game. Has losing half of his match fee at Headingley caused him to reflect? Nope.

“I’m certainly not going to lose my passion for the game…”

No one is asking you to lose your passion for the game, Stuart. Just stop swearing at umpires. And fielders. And pigeons.

Monday, 4th July
Like an empty stomach the Katich Controversy rumbles on, but not everyone thinks that the decision to axe Australia’s most reliable batsman was a catastrophically short-sighted one. Coach Tim Neilsen isn’t party to the mystical goings on in selection land, but he fronted up today and said that he thinks the Katichlessness of the list of contracted players is probably a sign that the team is being regenerated.

Probably.

Of course, there are alternative explanations for his absence, all of them, in my opinion, just as plausible as the regeneration hypothesis:

1. The 17-year-old intern charged with filling in the Central Contract Software Wizard sneezed and accidentally deleted Katich’s name. He couldn’t get hold of anyone in IT so he just went with it.

2. Hilditch and Chappell have never really been happy with their spelling of “Katich” and so avoided the whole tricky business by going for Fil Huges instead.

3. The selectors wrote down the names of every vaguely talented Australian player they could think of on scraps of paper torn from a copy of Steve Waugh’s autobiography, put them all into Skippy the Magic Bush Hat, gave it a shake, chanted the magic words, (“Bowling Shane”) and awarded contracts to the first 25 names out of the hat.

4. They don’t like his crispy salmon. Who the hell wants their salmon crispy anyway? And his salads are just well, a little bit too tomatoey, you know?

Tuesday, 5th July
Good news for those of you living in the Caribbean. Things must be going pretty well domestically, because apparently your prime ministers are able to take time away from managing the economy, public services, transport and crime in order to tackle some of the region’s more trivial problems. And top of the agenda is the row between some incompetent suit wearers and Jamaica’s millionaire sulking champion.

After sorting out the Gayle squabble, I believe they will be tackling other important issues such as why do dogs eat grass, why can we never find our car keys and why are chocolate bars are a lot smaller than they used to be.

Afridi: you can call him Mr Muesli © AFP

Saturday, 28th May
Watching Cook and Trott bat today it occurred to me, in those brief moments between naps, that the medical profession is missing a trick. Such is the anaesthetic potential of England’s most prolific run-gatherers that it can’t be long before doctors are prescribing a dose of Trott and Cook for insomniacs, and anaesthetists are playing unedited highlights of their exploits to patients about to undergo minor surgery.

How to describe them doing their thing today? It was like watching two brick walls, each recently painted a different shade of grey, in order to find out which would dry first. And when they weren’t dull, they were annoying, particularly Trott, whose excavatory habit has reached the outer limits of screamingly irritating. Watching him is like sitting on a train next to someone who continually drums their fingers. Or listening to Danny Morrison commentate for more than 45 seconds.

Sunday, 29th May
IPL viewing figures are down. This is not surprising. There has been much talk of a tipping point in audience interest, but I think it’s not so much a tipping point as a choking point. For example, I think I’d enjoy being hand-fed from a bowl of peeled grapes but not if 74 grapes were shoved into my gullet in rapid succession whilst someone was pinching my nose and holding my jaws open. It would be even less pleasant if the forced grape-gorging were to be accompanied by Siva shouting in my ear that I was experiencing a Citi Moment of Indigestion.

Monday, 30th May
What a silly match. Some argue that this is the beauty of Test cricket, that for four days nothing occurs, then, long after everyone has gone home, something happens. This isn’t much of an argument or a selling point. It’s like promoting a package holiday tour and promising that 80% of the time you’ll be bored out of your skull, but things will really pick up just before you catch your flight home. Fine, well, in that case, let’s just cut to the chase. One afternoon, 20 overs a side. We could even give it a catchy name, like “Twenty20” or some such.

The final day’s high jinks were not the only silly thing about this Test. A year ago KP was undone hilariously by Shakib Al Hasan, and in Cardiff his contortions against Herath were similarly comic, his limbs flailing in all directions, like a giraffe learning to ice skate, as he contrived to discover hitherto unseen menace in one of Rangana‘s slow straightish ones. But like the punchline to your favourite comedy sketch, the fact that you know it’s coming doesn’t make it any less amusing.

Tuesday, 31st May
I’m not sure how many times Shahid Afridi has retired. Statsguru is no help on the matter, since it fails to list this or many other statistical player essentials, such as number of breaches of the ICC Code of Conduct, pages in autobiography, tweets per day and so on. This latest Afridi sabbatical would require a new column in the records as it is a “conditional” retirement – conditional, that is, upon the entire PCB being replaced. I love Shahid, but he is flakier than a crate of breakfast cereal, and he has now achieved the remarkable feat of making Ijaz Butt look like a reasonable man for five minutes.

A Shakespearean costume that KP has his eye on should he become captain again © Getty Images

Tuesday, April 19th
With the imminent abdication of Andrew Strauss from the one-day international throne, we are entering King Lear territory. Strauss is the ageing monarch. Alastair Cook is Cordelia. And Stuart Broad and KP are the ugly sisters, entirely unsuited to the position, but nevertheless jostling their way to the front of the media’s attention. Perhaps Strauss might stick to the script and divide the captaincy between them?

Last week, Bambi let it be known that yes, he’d quite like to do the job some day, but personally, he thought Straussy should go on for ever and ever. KP wasn’t quite so subtle today and inevitably found time to mention what happened the last time he was in charge. He said that it was water under the bridge, though this particular stretch of water has been recycled a number of times and is starting to look a bit murky.

But though the entertainment value of another KP captaincy stint should not be underestimated, I’m not sure that what England need to lead their rebuilding is a man who looks good in sunglasses. He should probably stick to what he’s best at: hitting huge sixes, communicating complicated emotional states in 140 characters or less and finding imaginative ways to lose his wicket to part-time left-arm spinners.

Wednesday, April 20th
Chris Gayle today demonstrated the efficacy of a new sportsman rehabilitation programme. Based around the recuperative power of the dollar, the new approach is believed to work directly on an individual’s bank account and involves significant transfusions of money. The effects are remarkable. Yesterday, Chris was injured. Today he is fit again and on Friday he will be able to play for Bangalore.

Cynicism aside, I have every sympathy with Gayle. The only thing that I don’t like is that these players are so coy about the choices they make. Why would you put your body through the strain of a five-day match, watched by nobody, for a modest wage, when you can play a more exciting brand of cricket in front of an audience of millions for a fortune? Country versus franchise? No contest.

Thursday, April 21st
At long last, the crisis that threatened to slightly disrupt Sri Lanka’s preparations for a not-very-important Test series is over. At a press conference today, a spokesman for Sri Lanka Cricket read out the following statement.

“First of all, let me say that in no way would we give in to pressure. The BCCI may be a large, powerful, and if I may say so, a deeply attractive, charismatic and fragrant organisation, but we make our own decisions. I can reveal that we did have a fruitful and productive meeting with Indian officials and we were persuaded by their arguments, particularly the points made by their associates with the baseball bats.

As you are aware, earlier this week we demanded that, if they could be bothered, our better players might like to consider turning up in England on May 5. We believed that two weeks was necessary to adjust to English conditions. We now realise that this was complete nonsense and that 24 hours and a jolly good nap on the plane is sufficient acclimatisation. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Go Kochi!”

Friday, April 22nd
A Chris Gayle century is never dull and his debut for the Royal Challengers was typical in its spectacular brutality. Perhaps the best part though was when Virat Kohli realised he was in danger of pooping the party and denying Gayle his ton. Two runs to win, three balls to go in the over and the professional thing would have been to plunder the runs. But the watching millions did not tune in for a display of hard-nosed professionalism. We want drama, excitement, entertainment and, occasionally, a little human interest. Well done, Virat, for seeing the bigger picture.

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.”

An appropriate though delayed reaction from Mike Hussey after he's told Australia are indeed playing England © Getty Images

Wednesday, 24th November
It’s the Ashes! Finally, the big day had dawned and SKY were beside themselves with excitement. Their pre-game package appeared to have been put together by a producer who’d overdosed on sugary sweets and espresso. Rushed interviews, curtailed opinions, frantic ad breaks, an orchestral crescendo, more ads, a chat with Graeme Swann, a few bars of thumping music, a fast-forward two minute review of the 1986-87 series, another advert and oh my god it’s the Ashes! The Ashes!

The whirlwind of hype reached a shrieking frenzy at around 23:45 GMT with an uptight Nasser and a rudely tanned Sir Beefy breathlessly chanting, “The pressure’s on Australia, never write off the Aussies, the pressure’s on Australia, never write off the Aussies…” whilst both looking as though they really badly needed to go pee. And when Strauss was out in the first over, the coverage moved into the higher registers where only bats, dolphins and highly sensitive dogs could enjoy it.

And then it got a bit dull. Admittedly, Test cricket isn’t designed for late-night television where constant stimulation is necessary to keep your audience from slipping into unconsciousness. But there’s another problem. Let’s be honest, this is a mid-ranking tiff between two unremarkable teams squabbling for the right to be considered not quite as good as Sri Lanka. By 00:20, my snacks depleted, I had begun to scratch a Trott-style line in my sofa. By 00:35 I was taking an interest in the shopping channel. By 00:45 I was asleep. It’s the Ashes! Wake me up when it’s over.

Thursday, 25th November
You’ve got to hand it to Mr Modi and I’m not just talking about legal notices. The great man has been speaking to his people via Modivision, his personal Youtube channel.

"Of course we made some mistakes, but if we hadn't made some mistakes, I wouldn't have corrected them and made it better and that is why we are the world's hottest league".

Nice work, Mr M. A lesser man admitting to his mistakes might suggest as a defence that yes, he did a few things wrong, but that he’s learnt his lesson. But that is not the Modi way. Here the blessed Lalit is suggesting that without his mistakes, the IPL wouldn’t be as good as it is and so really, he should be thanked for instituting those vital mistakes and can he have his job back please? I’m not sure if he has a lawyer, but then again, I’m not sure that he needs one.

Saturday, 27th November
Ajantha Mendis is a bowling machine set to “random”. Trying to pick him must be like trying to work out what kind of liquorice allsort will be next out of the packet. A googly without the turn. A kind of offbreak. A carrom ball. One that sort of hangs there. A range of loopy ones that look like they might break left or right but don’t. A straight fast one. A curvy straight fast one. A slightly slower straight one.

But in the end, liquorice allsorts all taste like, well, liquorice. You can have enough liquorice is what I’m saying. Watching him bowl is exhausting to watch, faintly hypnotic, but also a little infuriating. He’s like a magician performing the same trick over and over again. “Ta-da!” says Ajantha as he pulls yet another new breed of rabbit out of his top hat to polite but dwindling applause. “Look at this one though,” he protests, “It’s got slightly longer ears than the others!”

"Yes, after this I will write a book on how to use cricket to deal with break-ups. No, Michael Clarke will not write the foreword" © Manoj Ridimahaliyadda

Saturday, 20th November
At this time in the Ashes cycle, it can be all too easy to forget about those less fortunate than ourselves. But I ask you, dear reader, to put off the thrill of watching Steven Finn bowl to Marcus North for a little while longer and take a minute or two to help a worthy cause. I’m referring of course to the “Save Our Spinners” Appeal. The campaign was launched today with the help of a moving video featuring a montage of slow bowlers from Hogg to Hauritz standing hands on hips, gazing forlornly towards the midwicket boundary. You can’t fail to be moved by their plight.

Since 2007, this native Australian species has been in drastic decline. Attempts to rear new spinners have not gone well. Too often they are released into the harsh international environment to fend for themselves before they are ready, with tragic consequences. So it is vital that we act now. Please sign our petition urging the Australian selectors not to pick Xavier Doherty for the first Test and to return him to the safety of his natural Tasmanian habitat, where he can live out his career in peace. Together, we can make a difference.

Wednesday, November 21st
The IPL may be the finest franchise-based Indian Twenty20 League in the world, but there is room for improvement. I’m thinking particularly of the unsatisfactory names with which many of the teams are burdened. I mean, Super Kings? A proper monarch should require no adjectival adornment. And Chargers? What does that mean? That they are in the habit of demanding a fee? That they are a team of electrical engineers? And don’t get me started on the redundant plural in the name of the team from Kolkata. Everyone knows that the Hoff worked alone.

Well Zimbabwe have shown the cricket world how it should be done. Their recently completed Twenty20 bash was stuffed full of teams with proper names, names to fire the imagination. I give you, in no particular order: Rocks, Mountaineers, Tuskers, Rhinos and Eagles. You see, a snappy title can transform a hum-drum sporting collective at a stroke. For instance, one of the teams is Mid-West. Yawn. But wait a moment. What about Mid-West Rhinos? Much better. Now they sound like a gang of armoured ruminants from the wrong side of town. Good work, Zimbabwe Cricket *

Thursday, November 22nd
Cricket isn’t just a religion; it’s far more useful than that. It can offer sound advice of direct relevance to everyone’s life. Indeed, cricket has saved my skin on more than one occasion. Take this afternoon, for example. Having recklessly volunteered to go shopping, I was presented with a lengthy list of items to purchase, a certain sum of money with which to purchase them and a deadline. My quest did not go well. I got lost on my way to the shopping centre, was unable to prevent a pigeon from eating the list and then rashly invested the money in the 3:40 at Uttoxeter.

Upon my return I was questioned somewhat critically on the missing money and the absence of shopping but thanks to my knowledge of the great game, I was able to draw on the wisdom of the great Kumar, from his Sermon after the first Test in Galle. It was suggested that I had failed. This was incorrect. I pointed out that I had not failed; I had just not executed my plans. Not executing your plans, I explained, is like failing, but nowhere near as bad. Aside from a little light bruising and the odd broken tea cup, this worked a treat. I’m planning to use it next week to explain to the Inland Revenue why my tax return is late. I’ll let you know how I get on.

* As far as I am aware this is the first time that this particular sentence has ever been used in public.