The Adventures of Ponty Manesar
Today was another watershed for the England cricket team - Monty Panesar, who won his first cap today, is the first Sikh to play for England. Panesar is a spin bowler, and, by all accounts, one of some promise. I can only hope that his bowling is up to scratch at Test level, because his batting is crap and his fielding is worse. If he doesn't make an impact with the ball, it will be a long couple of days running from fine leg to fine leg in the Indian heat.Amit Varma is currently covering the India-England series, and spoonerically refers to Panesar as "Ponty Manesar". He has also concocted a series of stories about dear Ponty based on the premise of him being generally hopeless at everything.
As a team-bonding exercise, Duncan Fletcher decides that the team should play basketball. Ponty has never played basketball before. Nevertheless, he rushes out manfully onto the basketball court. Then the ball is thrown to him, and he just stands there, unsure of what to do with it.
"Bounce, Ponty, bounce," shouts Shaun Udal.
Ponty keeps holding the ball and starts jumping up and down.
To see more of the stories, try here and here.
posted by Ken @ 6:15 PM
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