We had our first Ashes dream

Not our first Ashes dream ever. Are you mental? No. The first for this series (which doesn't start for months yet).

It was quite a good one, fulfilling many of the Ashes dream criteria, but it did end on a bit of a cliffhanger and there was a degree of frustration involved.

It was the first Test, as it always is in Ashes dreams and it was being played in Jamaica, which is just about never the case in Ashes dreams. Australia batted first and hit 500. This is a surprisingly common theme in Ashes dreams. Sometimes the Aussies are crushed from the outset, but more frequently they maintain their world-beating aura until the final act.

On this occasion England started their fightback in the first innings. Michael Vaughan (yes, Michael Vaughan) declares with England on 780 and Andy Flintoff unbeaten on 177. We're not too sure why Michael didn't let Flintoff get his double hundred. It was only the end of the second day because England had scored so phenomenally quickly.

At this point we go off to the pub, but unfortunately we can't find the bar. Then Afridi (who is our cat) starts squeaking and jumping on our feet and we wake up. We don't know why he squeaks. We're going to train him to shout 'Howzat' instead, although that might be even more annoying at 5am.

Shahid Afridi is dropped

Pakistan have obviously been forced into some changes with their strike bowlers all being banned. They've also made a couple of unforced changes to their Test squad for the upcoming series against the Windies.

First and foremost, Shahid Afridi's been dropped. This is pretty much unforgivable from an impartial point of view, but really you can't blame them one bit. Omar Haq provided a water-tight case in favour of dropping him a couple of weeks ago. We sympathise entirely while simultaneously wishing he was playing.

Pakistan have also dropped Mohammad Sami and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan. We can understand the dropping of Sami, a gifted bowler whose confidence is subterranean, but Rana Naved-ul-Hasan's omission is puzzling to say the least.

The replacements include a slow left-armer called Abdur Rehman, who we've never heard of and Samiullah Niazi, who we love, despite never having seen him play, on the grounds that he's a left-armer and Pakistani - like Wasim Akram.

Finally, just to confirm that our cat will continue with the name Afridi, despite this setback.

Strauss being conspicuously indifferent to Strauss

Lemon Bella sent us this:



Lemon Bella says: "Here is a photo of my cat, Strauss, being conspicuously indifferent to a copy of The Wisden Cricketer.

"That edition has Andrew Strauss on the cover too. So StraussCat is not only being conspicuously indifferent to cricket, but also conspicuously indifferent to his namesake's captaincy ambitions."

We're particularly impressed with how Strauss has found what looks like a small piece of paper and trained his gaze on that in order to underline his indifference to cricket.

More animals being indifferent to cricket

Granville and Carlo being conspicuously indifferent to cricket

Miriam sent us some pictures and some accompanying words.



"Granville is so wilfully indifferent to reading about Sri Lanka’s magnificent rearguard innings at the 2006 Lords test that he has turned his head in disgust."



"Carlo is so indifferent that he hasn’t even opened the book but is using it as a headrest despite there being a perfectly good pillow available right behind him."

Of the two, we're most impressed by Granville's performance. Carlo is clearly indifferent to cricket, but it's an idle, effortless indifference. Granville's putting his back into it. Look at his expression. The power of his indifference is humbling.

Miriam sent us quite a number of variants on these two pictures. We spent an inordinate amount of time comparing two of the Granville photos trying to determine which featured the better display of indifference, despite the fact that they were so similar they could actually have been the same photo but with different file names.

More animals being conspicously indifferent to cricket

Animals being conspicuously indifferent about cricket

We've taken a picture of our cat, Monty, being indifferent about cricket. He's actually SITTING on the cricket page of the paper. How does he expect to find out about Alastair Cook's hundred by doing that?




Look at him. Look at how conspicuously indifferent he is about cricket.

We'd say something like, 'the balls of that cat', if it weren't in very poor taste due to our being essentially responsible for their removal.

We're hoping that this is the first of a segment of King Cricket we're going to call: 'Animals Being Conspicuously Indifferent About Cricket'.

In our head we'll be inundated by photographs from readers. In reality, Monty's going to be a busy cat. Busy being indifferent, which is very much his default emotion.

More animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket:

Pigeons being conspicuously indifferent to cricket
Number 42 being conspicuously indifferent to cricket
Granville and Carlo being conspicuously indifferent to cricket
Murphy being conspicuously indifferent to cricket
A mountain viscacha being conspicuously indifferent to Rob Key
Strauss being conspicuously indifferent to Strauss
Strauss being conspicuously indifferent to Strauss's omission
Carlo and Granville being conspicuously indifferent on the field of play
Strauss being conspicuously indifferent to Strauss's reselection
Nimbus being conspicuously indifferent to King Cricket in The Wisden Cricketer
Nella the African hunting dog being conspicuously indifferent to cricket

Monty and Afridi's Ashes prediction

They say that the animals are always the first to know, so let's ask them: Who is going to win the Ashes?

You've already met our cat Afridi. Meet his brother, Monty.


Now the premise is simple. Every possible Ashes result is represented by a foodstuff. Whichever foodstuff Monty and Afridi select will be the outcome of the series.


An England win is represented by some tuna fish, the draw by some cat biscuits and a win for Australia is represented by a leaf of lollo rosso. It's time to decide...


Monty's first to make his decision. He immediately plumps for an England win. Hurray!


Afridi also goes for an England win. It's unanimous. The animals have spoken: England will win the Ashes!


Monty and Afridi subsequently revealed that they consider the draw to be a possible outcome, but they didn't even think about an Australian win. In fact they spurned it altogether in favour of going to stare at the settee for a while.

Shahid Afridi helps Pakistan win Twenty20 match

We feel that we should at least comment on Pakistan's victory in the Twenty20. Mike Yardy had a decent international debut, hitting 24 not out off 14 balls and taking 1-20, but the most newsworthy contribution as far as King Cricket's concerned was from Shahid Afridi: 28 off 10 balls.

We were going to write lots of 'ooh, imagine Shahid Afridi playing Twenty20' sorts of things, but then we realised that this actually conflicts with the reason why we love Shahid Afridi. The genius of Shahid Afridi is in his complete disregard for the match situation. He's not going to bat any differently for Twenty20. He's the one player in the world whose run-rate will probably end up much the same in Twenty20 as it will in Test cricket. In reality, Twenty20 is the worst place to watch him bat because everyone else is doing much the same thing. In Test cricket he's a man alone.

We have a cat called Afridi. Here he is:


Unfortunately, our hopes of his being the first non-human to play for England were dealt a bitter blow by his revelation that he doesn't have opposable thumbs. This means that he can't even grip a cricket bat, let alone play a cover drive.

His development as a leg-spinner is being hampered by his tendency to look bemused and then wander off during training. Also, given the choice between standing in the sink and performing fielding drills, Afridi inevitably opts for standing in the sink.