Week One Day One
There
I was, having some top Indian grub in the local tandoori house, when the
old Nokia starts beating out the Joe 90 theme tune, much to the amusement
of Bumble and Harvey. " Christ on a bike ! It's only Lord Check Out !
" . Says I with my hands covering the old receiver. " Yes Mr.
McClaurin - Manchester Airport - certainly Mr. Loyalty Card, er, Mr.
McLaurin, yes sir - hey ? Two hours ! But I haven't finished my popadoms,
and I've got a Bombay Aloo, Chicken Madras, Pilau Rice, three Naan Bread,
Tarka Dhaal, Bombay Duck, Sagaloo, chips, oxtail soup, prawn cocktail and
a biscuit Vienetta still to come....hallo, hallo, hallo ! ". He'd
rung off.
At that, Bumble orders
three more pints of Cobra and congratulates me, whilst Harvey says it's
dead ironic that I should hear the news in an Indian restaurant - whatever
that means.
Day Two
Man,
what a flight - talk about long ! Why can't everywhere live as far away as
Corfu, Then I wouldn't have to put up with the likes of this boring geezer
with a double barreled name who does the cricket commentary that's not on
the telly - the radio, that's it.
As
soon as I took my seat, he looked up from his laptop, gave me a double
take, shook me by the hand, and started banging on about some bloke from
the olden days, who had a big beard and played cricket for England and
Gloucestershire - you know, one of them hick counties. He told me that
he's in the middle of writing an autobiography about him - apparently this
big bloke with a beard was kind of like, the Ronnie Irani of his day -
only he didn't have an agent ! Mental, hey Anyway, after three hours of
him going on about the importance of possessing a high arm ( whatever that
is when it's at home ) I start, like, pretending to go sleep, only to miss
the bleeding grub. Starving, man - not good, not good at all - especially
seeing as I ate the remains of my curry on the moving pavement in Heathrow
departures, some seven hours earlier.
Finally
arrived at some horrible time of the day, and given a very rude shock upon
arrival. After traveling all that distance, I turned up at Delhi Airport,
expecting Nas, Butch and the rest of the wrecking crew to be waiting - but
all I got was some scrawny git who reckons he's our new wicket-keeper.
" I don't give a f*** who you are mate, where the f*** are the proper
players", I said" then I dropped my coffin on his foot and told
him it wasn't a good idea to send a boy to do a man's job. There, that
told him. "
Day Three
Awoken
rudely by new boy, who thinks it's a bright idea to start the day by doing
200 sit-ups and press-ups. "What?" I says to him, " the
f*** do you think you're doing numb nuts?"
I couldn't
sleep with Mr. Motivator going through his routine, so it's off down to
breakfast. I'm literally placing the first piece of fried slice on my
special big plate, when a large hand appears on mine. " Tut ! Tut !
Freddy - you've got to be able to reach the wicket to get wickets, if you
see what I mean - and this only slows Freddy down, doesn't it now. Variety
packs from now on, lad. "
I
hate dieticians, especially Fruit 'n' Fibre Phil, who famously tried to
ban Beefy Botham from eating two chickens for lunch when team England were
in the field.
PM
The
lads spent the first hour catching high balls - but then things kinda got
boring, so I asked to come out of the net and do some bowling. I don't
know about you, but I'm not sure I'd spend good money to see Ramps
prodding and poking around for hour after hour - don't get me wrong, he's
a good batter and everything, but 57 head-over-the-ball-finishes in a 45
minute net is enough for any man, dontcha think.
Just heard
about this geezer from the cricket board here who reckons they're still
going to pick some bloke, even though he's been banned. Apparently this'll
mean we might not play the First Test, which is fine by me - need another
few days good kip to be quite honest with you, and a day or two lounging
around by the pool. Put it like this: if we don't play, that means it's
still nil-nil in the series, with everything to play for - makes perfect
sense to me.
Day Four
Met
up with Beefy today - to say he's not too keen on being out here would be
putting it mildly. Apparently he's bricking it, what with it all going off
in Afghanistan - I told him not to worry, and that everything was going to
be all right, he asked me how I knew, to which I showed him a copy of the
Sun's 'Kabul Falls' headline, which I happened to be carrying around in my
back pocket - I told Beefy it must be true - at which he turned a funny
colour, and gave a big sigh. I knew that'd put his mind at rest, because
later on I caught him and Charles Colville in the hotel bar celebrating.
My
dingbat of a roomy was sat on his bed this morning reading a book about
some bloke called Stalin. "Never heard of him ", I said, looking
through my coffin for those Duty Free Bensons, soft lad pipes up with,
" He's only one of the most important figures of the 20th
Century". " Oh really - so why haven't I ever heard of him ?
" At this, he simply went "mmmm....". One-nil to
Freddy Flintoff, methinks.
Go to Flintoffs diary
part 2
|
