Sure, Adrian Barath got a century on debut against Australia but Zimbabwea's mighty army of ravenous spinners made short work of him © The Nation

Just how bad was the Twenty20 game between West Indies and Zimbabwe? There is as yet no internationally agreed scale by which we can measure cricket awfulness, so instead we must rely on the judgement of the experts. Alec Stewart played for England in the 1990s and so clearly knows a thing or two about staggering ineptitude. He declared Sunday’s game the worst international cricket he has ever seen. I think that says it all.

Both sides were equally dreadful, but in slightly different ways. Zimbabwe spent their first dozen overs swinging and missing, like blindfolded lumberjacks trying to locate something woody. They worked their way through The Book of Thwackery, exhibiting every variation of scything, lunging and groping that you could wish to see on a cricket field. Mr Stewart said it belonged on the village green. It wasn’t that good.

At 40 for 4 after 12 overs, it was all over and the Zimbabwean in the box, Neil Johnson, was expressing disappointment that at this rate, we would not get to see Keiron Pollard bat. But his companion, the legendary Tony Cozier, had been here before, on two or three dozen occasions.

“This is West Indies we’re talking about,” he said, “Let’s not get too far ahead.”

The man is a prophet.

Zimbabwe were noisy, keen and had the word “faith” sewn onto their tomato red jerseys. More importantly, they had spinners, dozens of them.

The spin bowler is the natural predator of the modern West Indian batsman. Apparently, even modest trundlers wreak havoc in Caribbean regional cricket. If Gareth Batty had been born in Port-of-Spain, he’d be on his 100th international cap by now. I understand that Kieron Pollard’s agent has insisted on a clause in his Mumbai Indians contract, exempting him from having to face anyone bowling slower than 70mph.

They tried charging down the pitch. They tried hitting them in the air. They tried missing the ball completely in the hope that it might catch Tatenda Taibu by surprise and sneak past for four byes. They didn’t so much collapse like a house of cards as sink slowly into oblivion like a house constructed on quicksand. At the end of game, the echo of booing drifted across the home ground of the second best Twenty20 team in the world. First Bangladesh, now Zimbabwe. Is there anyone left to lose to?

Bob Willis would have loved the carnival of comedy in Trinidad. Instead, he was stuck in Bangladesh, watching comparatively good cricket. But being a professional, he can adapt his curmudgeonly style to any conditions. I turned on late for Tuesday’s game but within 60 seconds he had already worked in two complaints. First, he bemoaned the effect of the new fielding restrictions on one-day bowlers’ economy rates. Then Stuart Broad had the misfortune to drop a sitter. "Playground stuff,” sighed Bob, keeping his own personal moan rate at a healthy two per over.

This game also produced the best banner of the year so far: “Tigers are hungry. Cook, go to kitchen.” Genius.

	The deep-conditioning and exfolliating worked. The big screen loves me © Getty Images

Saturday’s Twenty20 game was an intriguing desert clash between England and a Shahid Afridi XI at a venue that could have been renamed Afridi World for the night. Among the Aztec hats, carnival masks, fluffy toys and inflatable camels there was an abundance of banners and placards, and a brief survey revealed that 99% of them referenced Mr Boom. His appearances on the big screen (approximately once every 30 seconds) sparked waves of jubilation, and the entire occasion seemed to be building to one point: the moment when the man himself arrived at the crease. Time divided neatly into two periods: BA (Before Afridi) and AA (After Afridi).

One of the few banners not proclaiming Shahid-love exhorted the Pakistan players to “captain like Imran, bowl like Wasim and Waqar and bat like Aamer, Saeed and Ramiz”. But until Abdul Razzaq entered the arena, their batting had been more Mr Bean than Mr Raja.

British politician Dennis Healey had a habit of referring to people who behaved foolishly as “silly billies”. This phrase popped back into my head as I watched Imran Nazir set about the task of laying a solid platform for Pakistan’s run chase. The first ball was hit stylishly down the ground for four. The second was blocked. The third was dispatched swiftly to the palms of third man with a mighty forehand smash.

His opening partner proved no more resilient. Soon after Nazir’s departure, Imran Farhat hit the ball straight up in the air and watched the white sphere soar into the night sky, like a wide-eyed child amazed by a firework.

It got worse.

“Don’t do it, Umar!” pleaded Ramiz Raja in the commentary box as the younger Akmal tried to hit Swann out of the ground in exactly the same way that Afridi hadn’t. Umar did it anyway and was caught where Ramiz said he would be. Silly billies.

Once again, the hard work fell to Fawad Alam, the slightly built innings-repairman, who it seems is permanently on call, and Razzaq, who did pretty much what Nazir and Co had tried to do, but better and harder and with more swagger. His mighty timberwork bludgeoned England to the ground and supplanted Kevin Pietersen’s earlier biffery.

Pietersen, of course, provides more entertainment value than just his knack with the willow. He is an absolutely hilarious runner between the wickets, mainly because he does not regard it as necessary to notify his colleague of his intentions. He first collided with Trott when he took the wrong lane, and then a few balls later ran him out. He bats like a magician but he runs like a sprinter with a hearing problem who can’t be sure the starter has fired his pistol but isn’t taking any chances.

But it was Pakistan’s day and though they didn’t bat like Ramiz or bowl like Waqar, they do have an Imranesque captain in the wings, even though technically the little “c” on the scoreboard was next to someone else’s name. But all that Urdu you heard via the stump microphone emanated from Afridi. He was busy, enthusiastic, always on the move. In two or three years, his team-mates may find it annoying. For now, though, his energy can still jolt his team out of lethargy and he sets off little sparks of belief wherever he goes. Welcome to Afridi World.

	The pitch for the Kolkata Test? Why not? © Getty Images

Some weeks ago, I suggested that gagging orders for professional cricketers might contribute to the advancement of humankind. Not everyone thought it was a good idea, but it was gratifying to read last week that two more of the species have confirmed my faith in the benefits of an immediate restriction of their right to free or indeed un-free speech. In a moment, Paul Collingwood. But first, I give you Mystic Chris Gayle.

Last week he announced that West Indies would beat Australia 4-1 in a one-day series. Now, we all like a little bit of pre-game trash talk, Chris, and we all like fairy stories, but I’m not sure the two really mix. I mean, there’s got to be at least a hint of reality in there or the kids will lose interest. If you’d announced that you’d been kidnapped by aliens or developed the ability to travel through time by twitching your nose, then maybe you’d have had a little more credibility, but 4-1? In Australia?

It gets worse. In between packing suitcases, practising his forward defensives and having five lie-downs (or burnout-reducers) a day, it’s Paul "Chuckles" Collingwood, doing his bit to bring back the good old days, when pale-skinned types travelled the world, sticking their flag where it ought not to be and having a good old giggle at how jolly backward Johnny Foreigner really was.

“It won’t be easy to find a golf course in Bangladesh. If there is one, they’ll probably have wooden clubs.”

Wooden clubs, Paul? Why’s that? Oh I see, because Bangladesh is a relatively poor country. I get it. It’s a GDP gag. Good one, Colly! Got any good Haiti jokes? No? Probably not, best to quit while you’re ahead, eh. And thanks for giving us another reason to hope for a thumping England defeat, besides your part-time captain and the forestalling of Volume 2 of the Alastair Cook Story.

And now for a prediction of my own. The second Test of the Kumble-Tayfield Trophy (thanks to Hilton for that suggestion) will be played out on a pitch that is dryer than the Gobi desert, for which India will field ten spinners, with Dhoni available to turn his arm over, should the game go into a third day. India will win, South Africa will lose and much tut-tutting will ensue from certain quarters.

But I don’t see the problem. How warped is a game in which a "result pitch" is something shady and slightly disreputable, likely to bring a groundsman a sternly worded letter from the ICC Pitch Sterilisation Committee? The concept of the "fair pitch" is one of the dullest ideas in modern cricket. Why must every 22 yards be like every other 22 yards? Let curators give full rein to their imagination and let’s see the return of the minefield, the cabbage patch and the sticky dog.

	'This isn't what we ordered. Prior-y let's make an official complaint' © Getty Images

It is hard to like the England cricket team, and not a man given to hard work, I have decided to take the easier alternative. I do have something of a headstart. Towards Swanny, Belly, Trotty, Cooky and the rest of them, their Twittering, their self-congratulation, their screaming like excited chimpanzees when one of their number catches a ball or ties his shoelace, I was already entirely indifferent. And recent events have provided plenty of fertiliser for the healthy antipathy I am cultivating towards the gentlemen who wear embroidered lions over their left nipple.

Take the upcoming tour of Bangladesh. A good opportunity to get some experience of Asian conditions? A chance to support the newest Test nation and give their supporters something to cheer about? Nope. It wasn’t so long ago, Mr Strauss that you were out in the wilderness of the shires, contemplating the futility of existence as you toiled away in front of two men and a dog. A handful of Test wins later and you’re suddenly too showbiz to go to Bangladesh. You need a rest. From what, exactly?

And there was something else I was going to talk about. Now what was it? It’s on the tip of my tongue ... Ah yes, I remember. Ball-tampering! I’m sorry, was that me? I don’t know what came over me. I sometimes have these explosive outbursts, usually involving highly inappropriate and profane language. Most unfortunate, particularly when it relates to something so seedy, so disreputable and so utterly un-British as the aforementioned interference with spherical objects. Ball- tampering! There I go again. Excuse me.

Still, I’m not the only one who’s said it. Some people were saying it on the television. Some ex-players, who really should know better, wrote it in newspapers. What was Michael Vaughan thinking? Children might have been reading! AB de Villiers said it at a press conference, but then he is South African and can be relied upon to completely misjudge the public mood. In fact, he used the phrase, “a little bit naughty”, which sounds delightfully camp when uttered in an Afrikaans accent (go on, try it).

Thank goodness then, for Wing Commander Strauss and the long hours he has put in with the Indignity Coach and the Chutzpah Co-ordinator. Just hours after his chaps had been caught live on television variously tenderising the ball with a boot or picking at it with a specially attached graphite fingernail, he managed not just to refute or deny it, he gave a sound tongue-lashing to those reprobates who had dared to offer the merest hint of a suggestion that an Englishman might have even contemplated contravening Law 42.3 or any of its sacred sub-paragraphs.

And backing him up in one of the tabloids was David Lloyd, employing a clever analogy to explain to us non-cricket folk why we hadn’t seen what we thought we’d seen. It went something like this:

Imagine Jimmy Anderson is a driver. Stay with it, it’s worth it, I promise. Now, imagine that Law 42.3 is a 30mph zone. Jimmy, in tearing at the ball with his fingernail, was merely doing the equivalent of 35mph in that zone. See what he’s saying? Jimmy was breaking the law, but only a little bit. Conclusive, I think you’ll agree. Although it does beg the question as to what 90mph might represent in this analogy? Presumably, destroying the ball with an acetylene torch and sprinkling the ashes onto Daryl Harper’s shoes?

You might think, then, that having scraped through that little difficulty, the England chaps might be keeping a lower profile. But not a bit of it. On Thursday they threw a team tantrum on the dressing-room balcony when Alastair Cook was dismissed. Then on Friday, another decision went against them and all of the England toys (officially merchandised rattles and dummies are currently available from all good retailers) flew out of the England pram. They made an official complaint. Against whom, for what reason and with what aim, it is not clear. But be in no doubt that it was a complaint and that it was good and official too, no doubt written in his bestest handwriting by the England coach. As you read this, Andy Flower is still sitting outside the match referee’s office, holding his breath in protest.

Fortunately, there are some former cricketers upholding the dignity of old Blighty. On Thursday afternoon, the day’s play had drawn to a soggy halt. In the Sky studio, David Gower, attempting to spark a little time-filling conversation, revealed that at dinner the previous evening he had been discussing with friends the prospects of any of the English players getting into a combined team. With undue optimism, he threw the subject open to his compadre from Lancashire.

“I haven’t given it any thought,” replied Athers, “It’s not the kind of thing I talk about at dinner.”

Ouch! This was the precisely the kind of deadpan comeback with which Atherton made such a fool of Allan Donald at Trent Bridge back in 1998. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Donald sweated and swore and ranted, but he just made himself look silly. I remember thinking at the time: get on with it, Mr Donald, show a stiff upper lip man. Don’t make such a scene. Yes, the ball bounced off the batsman’s glove and was caught. What do you want to do? Make an official complaint?

	The tri-series: an avant-garde celebration of the essential absurdity of human endeavour © Associated Press

Some have suggested that the Tri-Nations Tournament in Bangladesh is a less-than-gripping addition to the cricket calendar. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Triangular Extravaganza in Mirpur is an avant-garde celebration of the essential absurdity of human endeavour as seen through the medium of cricket.

Just as the abstractionists once stripped the figurative arts down to bare lines, so the Bangladesh Cricket Board has daringly done away with all that is superfluous in our sport. By insisting on playing the second half of every match in a paddy field, the 50-over game has been reduced to its essence: the toss.

So let’s have no more negative talk about this immensely significant, if ever so slightly damp, competition. I have enjoyed every minute of the Isosceles Cup and I have already planned my schedule for the final on Wednesday:

07:40 Secure my seat in front of the television
07:45 Cheer the arrival of the titles sequence
07:50 Whoop enthusiastically as the captains trudge out to the middle
07:52 Shout ‘Heads!’ or ‘Tails!’ as the mood takes me
07:52 Gaze open-mouthed in suspense as the coin hangs in the air
07:53 Listen intently as Dhoni (or it may be Sangakkara) utters those now familiar words, “I think we’ll have a bowl.”
07:54 Turn off television and go back to bed.

The Hypertridimensional Shield has, in addition to rendering overs 1-100 entirely superfluous, enabled me to watch some players I don’t see enough of. Amit Mishra is a case in point. Of the roughly 27 spinners employed by India during Sunday’s game, Mishra was the only one who caused the ball to rotate on its axis, and after a week of plucky tailenders hanging around forever, it made a pleasant change to see the batting duffers flail about like giraffes in a tar pit.

Skittling out the tail, of course, is part of the game that has gone out of fashion, like gentlemanly conduct or employing wicketkeepers who can catch. Which brings us to the curious case of Akmal, K. We learned this week that during the Sydney Test, the hapless keeper had been kept up nights trying to put his baby to sleep. But slow-motion footage obtained from the team hotel revealed some glaring flaws in his baby-rocking technique, described by Channel 9’s lullaby expert Ian Healy as "pretty ordinary". I’m afraid that the time has come for Mrs Akmal to seriously consider drafting in a replacement babysitter, at least for the remainder of the tour.

As for Kamran’s wicketkeeping, I don’t see what the problem is. I’m with the PCB on this. Five thousand dollars to teach someone to catch would have been an outrageous use of public money, money that could be better spent on desk stationery, name badges, executive trouser presses and the like. If absolutely necessary, I’m sure Ijaz Butt could be prevailed upon to give a demonstration. I mean, how hard can it be? Crouch like a frog, watch the ball, catch it if possible; it’s no big deal. And it’s not as if Kamran is getting the important stuff wrong. His chatter is some of the inanest and most annoying on the international circuit and that’s all you can ask for in a modern keeper.

Anyway, I hope the selectors see sense and retain him for the final Test, because he deserves to feature in the inevitable consolation victory. Yes, you read that correctly. By the strange laws of cricket physics currently affecting the game, it is blatantly obvious that Pakistan are going to triumph in Tasmania. I am as sure as if they were batting second in Dhaka. It’s their turn.

It is a lesson in the new cricket realities that the England management must absorb. I was somewhat dismayed at the weekend to see a twinkly-eyed Geoff Miller breathlessly extolling the virtues of his shiny new cricket team, with its multi-tooled bowling attack and devastating batsmen, reminding me of a 10-year-old boy telling all his friends what Santa had brought him. Long experience teaches us that Christmas Day’s glittery new toy is usually defunct by the time the snow begins to melt.

So delicately poised is the international balance of cricket power these days that for those who think they’ve reached the top, the taxi carrying nemesis is likely to be pulling in even before hubris has stepped onto the pavement. It would be far better, Geoff to describe your boys thus: "I believe England have the part-time batsmen to ensure that a likely defeat can be turned into a draw on a reasonably regular basis." Not sexy, I’ll grant you, but it might just satisfy the cricket gods and stave off the inevitable reversal in Johannesburg.

	Paul Collingwood rues not having been born in the days of timeless Tests © Getty Images

It is said that if you open any book by Cardus to any page, you will find what it is that you are looking for. By whom is it said? Well, by me, just now. Such is the genius of the great man’s writing, you may not even known what it is you are looking for until you find it. This morning, for example, I picked up my battered copy of The Summer Game, allowed the pages to fall open and came across the following:

“No lover of the game has a ghost of a reason for protesting against true and natural obstinacy at cricket.”

Quite right, Neville, straight out of the middle. As everyone knows, not losing is the essence of cricket. And the key to not losing is sheer, unvarnished, pig-headedness. Duncan Fletcher talks a lot about coming to the party. But he’s only telling us half the story. Cricket isn’t about coming to the party, it’s about refusing to leave the party, even when the other guests have gone home, there is nothing left to drink and the police are hammering on the door.

Ah, you might say, but what about Pakistan? Surely, they lost in Sydney precisely because they were trying not to lose. Not true, say I. Pakistan lost because they were trying to be too clever. Mohammad Yousuf has been incorrectly portrayed as a cautious skipper. That is a naïve view. His innovative in-out field (two men in, nine men out) was designed to puzzle Hussey and Siddle, which it did, to such an extent that they could only stagger the occasional bewildered run or 90.

But it was too clever. Pakistan were trying to fashion a delicate creation, a victory soufflé, when what they needed was something altogether stodgier and Durham-like. What they needed was a dose of Collingwood. Now, admittedly, the ginger-haired one is not a guru of grind - like, for example, the great Chris Tavaré . Tavaré’s Zen-like style has never been surpassed. He was rather like a knitter who only knows how to do scarves and so goes on row after row, knit one, pearl one, block one. Unfortunately, there is only so much scarf, or indeed Tavaré that you need.

But if Tavaré was the blocker’s blocker, Collingwood is a natural stonewaller, a man who only starts playing when the rest of the team have checked out of their hotel. Whilst Australians are at their best when sniffing victory, the English cricketer tends to rise to the occasion only when victory is completely out of the question. I was not privileged enough to see Ken Barrington play but my father speaks of him as a steadfast occupier of the crease. He was a rock, a cliff face; immovable, impassable.

By contrast, Colly is a lid on a jar of pickles. Not as awe-inspiring as rock face, I’ll grant you, but just as capable of defeating even the boldest opponent. No matter how hard you wrench, or pull or hit it with the blunt end of a screwdriver, the Collylid cannot be popped. You grunt and groan and roar with exasperation until in the end, your arms are tired, your hands are red raw and you drop the jar on the sideboard absent-mindedly, whereupon the lid pops off with a sigh. But it’s too late. You don’t care about pickles any more. In fact, you can’t bear the sight of them, and so you stomp off muttering something about lid-tampering.

I’ve never played cricket with Paul Collingwood, not even in my dreams, so I don’t know what it is like to see him plop your very best deliveries back into the dust like fizzled out fireworks. I imagine it isn’t much fun. I expect that when he closes his eyes, Dale Steyn can even now see that Colly crouch, that tap-tapping of the bat and that bow-legged forward poke from a shuffleboard player’s back lift. Block, tap, block, leave, block, tap. Repeat 276 times. Wrestling crocodiles was nothing compared to attempting to dislodge the obstinate Geordie.

	Giles Clarke, inventor of many valuable cricket laws © Getty Images

Life, friends, is a complicated, unsettling, sometimes dangerous business. We have to cling to what we know, to look to those truths that we can depend upon, which may not be for ever but which serve as useful beacons on the misty seas of 21st-century life. Fortunately there is one human foghorn in particular whose utterances always steer me in the right direction, away from the jagged rocks and into calmer waters. I am talking, of course, about Giles Clarke.

In the decades that have passed since he became ECB Chunterer-in-Chief, I have benefited enormously from his wisdom and even formulated some simple maxims to sum up his teaching. For example, Clarke’s First Law Of Cricket is a cornerstone of the English game. It states that if Giles Clarke declares his admiration for something or someone, then you can be sure that person or object is bad for cricket and entirely worth avoiding.

The elegance of Clarke’s First Law is that the converse also applies. Anything that gets old chubby cheeks blowing out hot air like a dirigible with a puncture is highly desirable and unquestionably good for the game. Only last week we witnessed a splendid pageant of colourful and spurious arguments as Clarke launched himself onto the airwaves to explain why the recommendation that the Ashes be on free-to-air television after 2013 was A Very Bad Thing. A Very Bad Thing Indeed.

Of course, under Clarke’s Law this means that it is A Very Good Thing. It has been easy to lose sight of this simple philosophical truth amid the barrage of disinformation and spin booming forth from the ECB’s media howitzers over the last five days. But like Luke Wright on his Test match debut, or a tabloid photographer trying to get a picture of Cinderella, we must keep our eyes on the ball. Though sultry Sky sirens such as Michael Atherton attempt to beguile us with their plaintive wailing, we must close our ears to it all and seek steadfastly for the truth by remembering Clarke’s Second Law of Cricket: Counties Come First.

This particular Law was born of a terrible truth. Deep down in the foul-smelling bowels of the ECB headquarters, just along the corridor from the Kolpak-cloning booth and past the boiler room where they store remaindered copies of Alastair Cook’s autobiography, is a yawning chasm of oblivion, the bottom of which is impossible to perceive. And a little way down into that unfathomed pit, clinging on precariously, is a hideous, slavering, 18-headed monster; deadlier than the Hydra and grumpier than Scylla with a migraine.

Each morning a Sky van delivers fresh sacks of currency notes, which humble ECB employees haul down to the basement and empty into 18 gaping maws, thus temporarily satisfying the beast’s appetite. But in 2013 there might be no more money trucks from Sky. After they have fed the young, the disabled and the women cricketers to the monster, what will the ECB do? Let the hideous beast starve, you might say. But Giles cannot. For long ago, he became King of English Cricket by making a pact with the creature. If he fails to keep it nourished, the magic will unravel and in a puff of hot air, he will turn back into a large, plump and slightly indignant rat.

	Thanks, I’ll pass © Getty Images

I don’t like the English cricket team. There, I said it. I feel no attachment whatsoever to this particular collection of blue-clad gym-botherers. It may be traitors’ talk, but I am entirely indifferent to the outcome of Friday’s semi-final. The match itself, I am looking forward to. The result is irrelevant.

So why don’t I care?

First of all, I’m not a natural patriot. The merest sight of a St George Cross and I begin to mumble angrily into my cocoa and feel an urge to whistle the “Marseillaise” or set fire to some Morris dancers’ handkerchiefs.

Ah, you might say, once a traitor, always a traitor. You may be right.

But ‘twas not always thus. Even though I grew up watching an inept bunch of no-hopers struggle desperately every summer, I took it for granted that I wanted England to win, and I took these losers to my heart. If I were asked to name my cricket hero, I would first lecture the interrogator on the inanity of the question, and then mutter something about Mike Atherton.

My levels of Englishness peaked in 2005. Watching reruns of that Ashes series, I realise that at the time I must have been blind to the drunken morons on the terraces, oblivious to the mindless, draining partiality of that summer’s prevailing mood and to the manner in which the subtle complexities of the great game were overwhelmed by a torrent of red-and-white jingoism. Australia were the cruel tormentors, the heartless tyrants, and we were finally overthrowing them. It was a victory for justice and freedom. Cry God for Freddie, England and St George!

But something happened during the post-Ashes hangover. You know what it’s like. A big night out, you wake up feeling depressed and you can’t remember where you left your shoes. Well, for me, it was my patriotism. I know I had it at the Oval. I’m sure it was around during the Trafalgar Square parade. But it had gone. And I haven’t found it yet. This summer, as England were being embarrassed by the Netherlands at Lord’s, I joined the worldwide club of neutrals and cheered the men in orange.

How did this happen? To be honest, I don’t know. There has been any number of disillusionments, disenchantments and irritations in recent years. There was Alastair Cook’s biography, Monty Panesar’s biography, the continued selection of Steve Harmison, the Stanford debacle, the canonisation of Andrew Flintoff, the total lack of anything approaching a global perspective on the part of the English press.

Or perhaps I just became bored of looking at the same old surly, unshaven, unsmiling bunch of really quite ordinary sportsmen. I grew tired of hearing how they were all very, very talented – despite all the evidence to the contrary. I began instead to take an interest in other, frankly more exciting teams. I began to enjoy the game for its own sake, without being tensed up in a clench of patriotic desperation.

And that is what I shall be doing on Friday, with a gin and tonic to hand. You are welcome to join me at Hughes Towers, providing you leave your flags in the foyer and don’t spill your lager on the Axminster.

	Full disclosure: your correspondent’s cellphone-alert tone is a song by this man © Getty Images

Burnout. It is the scourge of our times. And it can devastate lives. In fact, it struck this very morning. I had just sat down to my usual orderly breakfast, my eggs perfectly boiled, my toast symmetrically aligned and my butler standing ready with the Lady Grey. All that was missing was a crisp pile of fan mail. The clock ticked on inexorably. Eight thirty-one. Eight thirty-two. The toast cooled. Outside on the lawn, a cricket chirped. Silence reigned.

Then, instead of the comforting rattle of a brass letterbox, I was shaken by the shrieking of a polyphonic Freddie Mercury. I had received a text message from my local sorting office, informing me that my postman was unable to fulfill his contractual duties today. He had, it emerged, been delivering letters and parcels for 15 of the last 21 days and the Post Office management had decided to give him a rest, lest his letterbox-stuffing career be cut short.

My breakfast was ruined. The eggs were two degrees below their optimum edible temperature and my butler had sustained third-degree teapot burns. But I was not angry. You see, dear reader, I felt that poor mailman’s pain. I too have fallen victim to the curse of burnout.

Yes, I am ashamed to say that midway through the recent Natwest series between England and Australia, I experienced what can only be described as a spasm of ennui. I simply couldn’t watch another nudged single or another clumsy fielding pratfall. I was running on empty. I knew that if I didn’t take a break, I would be placing my sanity in jeopardy.

So I took off to the races and asked a chum to help out. He dutifully stood in for me during the fifth and sixth (or it may have been the ninth and 10th) matches, allowing me to return fresh and invigorated to catch the 17th game of the series and England’s statistically inevitable victory.

And it was whilst standing on the heath at Newmarket, watching those beautiful, athletic thoroughbreds galloping up the Rowley Mile, that a solution to the problem of player burnout occurred to me. Racehorses are sensitive, intelligent creatures. They are only in it for the hay, and yet in order to entertain us they are forced to run and run and run and occasionally thwacked with a leather whip, through no particular fault of their own.

So I have contacted the ICC’s disciplinary department to suggest a similar motivational tool for recalcitrant freelancers and lazy-arsed franchise employees. Take that, Mr Anderson, and get moving! Your job is to play cricket. We pay money. You play. That’s the deal. No, Mr Collingwood, I’m not interested in your bruised thumb, your dicky knee or your general feeling of world-weariness. Just shut up and play. And while you’re at it, do it better, too!

	“Hello, I’ll be your Ronnie for the day” © Getty Images

In less than three weeks time, the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 tournament will begin. Naturally, I assume you will all be watching. In these parts, the whole shebang is to be broadcast by British Eurosport, something of a coup for a channel more accustomed to bringing us the Baltic Wood-Chopping Grand Prix and Snail Endurance Racing from Calais.

None of this is a problem. I’m a broadminded kind of guy; I can live with getting my fix of the pyjama game via a rickety studio in Luxembourg. Anyway, thanks to the marvels of modern-day capitalism, I have no choice.

No, what is troubling me is the news that England’s very own Freddie Flintoff is to be part of the commentary team. Now Fred is a nice bloke, he does a good line in post-match self-deprecation, and I understand he has some interesting things to say on the subject of post-millennial immigration and its impact on standards of service in the hospitality industry.

Nevertheless, for all of his merits, he has one fault that renders him a commentary liability. He sounds exactly like Ronnie Irani. This is no trivial objection. For the last six months, I have been running a support group for traumatised IPL viewers suffering the effects of Post-Irani Syndrome. The symptoms they describe are invariably the same. Victims report seeing a yellow haze that they slowly recognise as the Setanta studio. They hear a man talking. The voice gets louder. They can make out the words, “I tell you what…” Then they wake up screaming.

The thought of this much-anticipated tournament being played out to a sound track of Lancastrian platitudes is enough to keep me up in the early hours, gnawing my pillow with anxiety. We can only hope that Freelance Fred is not being paid by the word.

I don’t know about you, but for a while now I have felt that there is something missing on Cricinfo. Sure, there’s plenty of informed opinion and pages of piercing analysis. Statistical weightiness? Check. Erudite journalism? Yep. Comprehensive information? You betcha.

That’s all very lovely. But what if you’re in the mood for some uninformed opinion? What if you have a liking for flawed arguments? And, while we’re at it, where are the wildly inaccurate recollections? Where are the vivid hallucinations, the ill-considered rants and the dangerously over-inflated metaphors? Look for these things on Cricinfo for as long as you want; you will not find them. In the march to the sunlit uplands of excellence, vast swathes of unexplored amateurishness have been overlooked.

Well, no more. I have been asked to venture forth into these territories, to pioneer on behalf of the dilettantes, the idlers, the malconents and the misguided; to speak for the silent minority, for those of us who like a little grit in our oysters.

My quest begins with a name: The Long Handle. What do we mean by The Long Handle? What is all about? Why is it here? Where has it come from? When will it stop? All of these questions will be answered over the coming weeks.

For those who can’t wait, all I can do is offer a little taste, a hint of what The Long Handle stands for. It is the look in Harbhajan’s eye just before he swings his handbag. It is the roar of an angry Sidebottom as Monty drops another sitter. It is the moment in a Shane Warne hair advert when you realise they aren’t joking. It is all these things and more. And sometimes less.