A ‘balls’ joke.

You can tell we’re on holiday.

We like the way the ball is behind his head.

As a batsman, it’s never good to have the ball behind your head. This is never more true than when it has arrived there via the stumps.

A lot of people are backtracking on Michael Clarke’s captaincy. He was astonishingly unpopular when he got the job – largely on the grounds that he looks like he drinks Smirnoff Ice – but many Australians seem to have warmed to him, what with all the wins and all.

On top of that, we’ve noticed that Clarke has moved up to number three in the rankings for Test batsmen. It’s all going well for him, of late. But is he all that?

He ain’t all that.

Okay, so maybe he’s won a few Test matches as captain. But how well would he captain if his players were all made out of dough and egg white? Hmm? How well would he captain then? Bet he wouldn’t win many matches with that side, would he? Captain your way out of that one Captain Fantastic.

And yeah, he’s hit a few hundreds in recent times. But how many runs would he score if he was encased in a giant fat suit and had to use a spatula instead of a bat? Not many, we’d wager. Bat your way out of that one Commander Sensational.

In conclusion: what a giant bell end.

This opens up the delightful possibility that Sachin Tendulkar will hit his hundredth international hundred and we won’t react to it. Bright-eyed Sachin fans will doubtless head straight to King Cricket as soon as he reaches three figures, but they won’t be greeted by a paean to their hero; they’ll get a photo of Tino Best accompanied by a limp and faintly crude joke.

Back Wednesday. Or Thursday. Behave yourselves.

It’ll never last. Templates get worn out. Give us a bottle of Tab Clear, some prawn crackers and a copy of Sensible Soccer and we would NOT have the perfect evening any more. Those days are long gone. We would need an entirely different beverage, an entirely different salty Chinese food and an entirely different computer game.

It’s also a weird sort of template that seems to rely on Kevin Pietersen dead-batting his way through the first few overs. Watching KP bat these days makes us feel sad and old. In many ways, watching cricket is about embracing the fact that you’re sad and old, but this is different – this is the bad kind of sad and old.

“It would be a great achievement to beat them 4-0 in their own backyard.”

Yes, it would, considering you’re in the Middle East.

There seems to be an issue defining ‘back yard’. Kevin Pietersen used the same term last week.

As a rule of thumb, international team names will point you in the right direction as to what constitutes the opposition’s back yard. If you’re playing Pakistan, their back yard is Pakistan. If you’re playing Australia, their back yard is Australia.

And after all of 12 matches, Steven Finn would seem to be their best bowler. How do you feel about these things? Angry or amazed?

Before this series, each of Sky’s commentary team picked their preferred England one-day side. We weren’t really paying attention (cooking, eating, playing games or just zoning out most likely) but we’re pretty sure at least one of them didn’t want Alastair Cook in the team. Whoever it was – if it was anyone – wanted Craig Kieswetter opening instead, because of his ‘big shots’ or something like that.

The person who may or not have said this is clearly wrong. Craig Kieswetter may well have bigger shots, but he generally only gets to play five of them. Alastair Cook plays dozens of his slightly smaller shots and scores hundreds. He middles the ball into gaps. It’s what you’re supposed to do.

One thing that we didn’t suggest was that England should try and get their opening bowlers incarcerated. We’re quite proud of the restraint we showed in that regard. But not so proud that we won’t effectively make the joke while boasting about how we didn’t make the joke.

You can read about what England can learn from Pakistan here.

This is what Zakhilwal said before Afghanistan’s first one-day international against Pakistan:

“There is nothing that can touch cricket in popularity or as a force for good in Afghanistan. There is absolutely nothing else that mobilises our society in the same way. Not politics, political events or reconstruction. Between 80-90% of kids will be watching this game and they play it on every street. President Karzai is watching and has phoned several times to get the latest news. Even the opposition Taliban have sent a message of support. Their spokesman said we are praying for the success of the team.”

We don’t know too much about repairing society. Shunning it maybe, but not repairing it. We do have a great deal of faith in cricket as a means of bringing people together though.

It’s a game where differences are half the point. Different playing conditions, different roles on the field, different styles of play. And yet everybody involved in cricket has something in common – the sport itself.

We’re not going to make any outlandish claims about what the sport can achieve – we’ll leave that to senior figures in the Afghanistan government – but we do think that people who follow cricket generally have a healthy interest in other cultures.

Cricket people seem less insular. A recent example of this was when Sky’s David Lloyd was joking with Saeed Ajmal before a day’s play in Dubai. Ajmal has pretty rudimentary English, David Lloyd is perhaps the most Lancastrian man in existence and yet here they were having a whale of a time.

We can’t imagine they have an enormous amount to say to each other, but they share cricket and a sense of humour. It was pretty clear afterwards that Lloyd absolutely loves Ajmal and we’d be surprised if Ajmal didn’t feel similarly about Lloyd.

It’s healthy to follow cricket. You can use that argument next time there’s a match on and you can’t be bothered putting up that shelf.

By the way, for a bit of background about cricket in Afghanistan, you could do a lot worse than watching Out of the Ashes.

England Lions made 96 all out in 28.3 overs. This apparently means that an England XI are chasing 230 in 50 overs.

It is not clear at this stage whether you get four runs for hitting a plant pot or whether that means you are out.

However, we CAN confirm that you can be dismissed off the first delivery you face. Alex Hales explored this avenue with the first ball of the match and was so dissatisfied with the results that no-one else is allowed to use his bat for the rest of the day.