Who would have believed that the humble jelly bean would become the subject of an international incident. But it has. An England close fielder, widely thought to be Alastair Cook has been depositing jelly beans by the stumps when Zaheer Khan was about to bat. In fact, Cook has denied that it was he, claiming to be a fruit pastille man, so suspicion falls on Kevin Pieterson, who has form on this sort of thing. I've known Rugby players who drank bovine blood from the local abattoir before a game and tennis players who feed bananas in like starving baboons - but jelly beans! Its supposed to be a man's game.
It seems that Zaheer has a bit of trouble with his weight and something of a sweet tooth. It was thought that this might rattle him. Well it sure did. It rattled him so much that he took 9 wickets and was declared man of the match. If I was Dravid, the Indian captain, I would make sure that a few Jelly beans were slipped into the pocket of any batsman going out to bat with Zaheer in the next match - with orders to surreptitiously place them on the wicket when drinks are taken, and blame the England fielders. And then stand back and watch the beamers, the shoulder charging, and Zaheer bowling like a mad bull. When I'm old and in a nursing home, I'll be asking "Where were you during the great jelly bean series".
No comments:
Post a Comment