Testy Match

Someone of an unsporting persuasion once remarked that the great thing about cricket was its being such a crashing bore most of the time that one can occasionally get quite worked up when something actually happens. An event of sorts appears to have occurred at Lord's, where an England batsman's legal dismissal was followed by a voluble outbreak of British sportsmanship against the Australian victors. The captain of the England team proclaimed that he wouldn't want to win a match by dismissing a professional cricketer who couldn't tell whether a ball was in play, and Fishy Rishi duly parroted the sentiment. Few among the master race will be surprised to hear that the Prime Minister has no particular interest in winning within the rules; but the matter has now been taken up by the Australian prime minister although, since neither La Truss nor the National Johnson is still in office, any danger to the Grand Pacific Alliance against the Heathen Chinee seems thus far comparatively remote. Utilising the primary-school vernacular which the wider world has learned to employ in dealing with the modern Conservative and Unionist Party, Anthony Albanese advised Fishy Rishi to "stay in [his] crease," although it remains as yet unclear which particular pair of scabby, flabby, haemorrhoidal buttocks encloses the fissure in question.