5-0 Thrashing - Scapegoat Needed...

Graeme Swann's ill-timed biography is the real reason England lost 5-0 in India. After a summer where even the weather conspired against India to leave them without an International win, the hosts turned the tables on a hapless English side to leave them sorely embarrassed by their trip to the jewel in the crown.

The conditions in India are always difficult to navigate. Pitches which turn part-time twirlers into world beaters and fast bowlers into trundlers don't help. Evening dew, smog and rabid fans come together to make life uncomfortable for visiting teams. But how come this England team played with so little joie de vivre and elan? How did a team that won a game by 10 wickets in September lose 10 for forty something yesterday? Why are our players fighting each other and looking moodier than Stuart Broad after a trip to the match referee's hut?

Wickman's search for a scapegoat has stopped at Swanny's hotel door. In the week the boys left for the land of curry and abysmal musicals his auto-biography was serialised. In it he slags off the team's world class maverick bat, KP, saying that he couldn't captain his way out of a wet paper bag. He also laid into Fatty Patel for some ruck or other in the past. Wickman forgets the rest. But what a way to treat your teammates and your newish One Day skipper!

Swann then wasn't allowed anywhere near the media, was comprehensively out-performed by Patel and only managed two wickets in four games while folk like Tiwary - who bowls utter filth - filled their boots with English wickets. Without his chum de bum Jimmy A on tour, and probably having been bollocked half to death by the England management, Swann seemed subdued and cheerless in the field and was treated with scant respect by the oppo.

Those that follow English team members on Twitter will have observed the playground bully banter that Swann indulges in against teammates. His post match bravado filled interviews remind Wickman of the graceless offerings of rugby's Matt Dawson. Perhaps this time Swann's brand of braggadocio has had a far more profound affect on his own dressing room. Let's face it. India is probably THE hardest tour. You don't want to have to take it on with a divided team, many of them with knives in their backs either crticised outright by someone within the dressing room or damned with faint praise.

Wickman seriously worries about the upcoming 2020 international. Will the boys really want to play for a skipper that they can't trust?

Surrey Championship Dinner

Older viewers of the blog may well remember a few years back the farrago of Henry Kelly's visit to Sandown. If not, search the blog and enjoy a report of a previous visit to the SC Dinner when an inebriated Kelly bored and insulted Surrey's finest club crickets and administrators before being booed off. Folk that were there that night made lofty promises never to return etc etc. But with the venue moved to the Oval and reports that Surrey had cleaned up its act, Mao, Clarky, Mr Bean, Alison, Nathan and various excited 3xi players decided to climb in to pick up the 3xi Div 2 Champions Trophy.

Ever so suprsingly we all had a cracking evening. The booze was drinkable and the evening's entertainment was... well... entertaining. The evening was well compered by a chap called Roger Makin who blended quick fire wit with hilarious tales of conceding an enormous number of goals against the Squareheads in a hockey international back in the day.

Tea received 6 out of ten. Cauliflower soup with some excellent croutons, some kind of beef and ale pie with veg and a pudding that evades the memory.

Theo Paphitis of Dragons Den and sponsor Rymans fame submitted to a Q&A and acquitted himself well despite the lateness of the hour and the imbibed nature of the audience.

The man that put the Wales into the England and Wales Cricket Board - offspinner Robert Croft - handed out the prizes and then told a number of amusing anecdotes about his time at Glamorgan. As this was towards the end of the evening, recollections are sparse but mostly involved Viv Richards smashing crap bowling into the Bristol Channel and the punchline "That's comin back wid seaweed on it". It was very amusing if you were there.

Pictured are the 3xi with Alison, brandishing the "trophy" [coming to a wall near you soon] and giving manly hugs to Crofty himself. Who was a legend and didn't mind having a bunch of well-oiled folk demanding photos of him with various bits of brass and silver.