MO PLACE FOR THE WICKED

I'm guessing Salman Butt (Billy Butts, Doonesbury fans?) is not the missing player:

Wisden names four Cricketers of the Year

The 2011 edition of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack will feature only four Cricketers of the Year, instead of the usual five, after the editor, Scyld Berry, chose to break with ancient tradition to reflect a year in which allegations of corruption during Pakistan's tour of England left a stain on the sport's reputation.

If [the player in question] were exonerated, then it would be possible to reconsider the position," explained Berry. "That's why I didn't pick anyone else instead. But as things stand, we don't feel we can choose him. It's all very sad."

Comments

[ankit]

Cant believe of the four nominated players one is Chris Read! I mean where's Tendulkar who scored 200 in the one game, or Mike Hussey or Kallis!

[David Barry]

Ankit, these awards are based on influence on the English season. Also Tendulkar was ineligible anyway, having been one of the Cricketers of the Year in 1997.

[Tony]

What DB said. You can only win it once. Apparently the contentious omission is Cook, who scored big in Australia but was dismal the rest of the year.

The full list. The only Cook to win a cricketer of the year is Jimmy Cook.

[Big Ramifications]

And the last bowler to be knighted was...? Anyone? Anyone?

[Tony]

Bueller?

[Freddie Trueman]

Francis fookin' Drake!

[Tony]

Richard Hadlee.

[Tony]

Alec Bedser.

[Big Ramifications]

Admittedly, it took me a few years to "get" the joke [hey, I was about 10 at the time]. Freddie was the first person to make me realise history could be funny.

[Yobbo]

Any list that has Ashley Giles on it is rubbish anyway.

[Tony]

Fair call.

[Tony]

5 for 88.

7 for 229.

Is it possible our bowling will get worse before it gets better?

[Big Ramifications]

So let me get this straight... this is like The Simpsons where eventually the inanimate carbon rod wins employee of the month?

Fark me, and people whinge that the Brownlow is a joke. That's just ridiculous.

ps: Thanks for the heads-up Dave, Tony, I didn't know those two conditions.

[Professor Frink]

this is like The Simpsons where eventually the inanimate carbon rod wins employee of the month?

That would be true if the average number of eligible cricketers = cricketers' average career in years. Clearly this is not the case.

[I don't do humour well]

[Rainier Wolfcastle]

The most famous (but probably apocryphal) anecdote about Drake relates that, prior to the battle, he was playing a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. On being warned of the approach of the Spanish fleet, Drake is said to have remarked that there was plenty of time to finish the game and still beat the Spaniards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake

[Billy the Kid, aka the bowler Craig McDermott]

The bowler — not the cowboy hat or sombrero — was the most popular hat in the American West, prompting Lucius Beebe to call it "the hat that won the West."[4] Both cowboys and railroad workers preferred the hat because it wouldn't blow off easily in strong wind, or when sticking one's head out the window of a speeding train. It was worn by both lawmen and outlaws, including Bat Masterson, Butch Cassidy and Billy the Kid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowler_hat

[TKYCraig]

The Plymouth Hoe story gets a run by Bill Hunter in Crackerjack... so it must be true!

[Big Ramifications]

I nevar evarr would have seen that movie of my own free will involving any sort of effort [Judith Lucy, world's moaniest comedienne, probably had a lot to do with it]. But it was on rotation as a house movie during a hotel stay. Got a few laffs out of it.

The cheese wheel. The fact that he arranged his whole life around a really good car parking spot. Can't remember the Plymouth Hoe story. Christ, I musta seen it 3 times that week. Losing my memory.

[Professor Rosseforp]

"it wouldn't blow off easily in strong wind" -- I wonder if the person who wrote that has ever worn a bowler hat.