Samit Patel in ‘unacceptable level of fitness’ shocker

I’m more disconcerted by who’s been called up in his place – Gareth Batty. He’s not even that good for his county!

Think he’s been brought in to raise the belligerance and truculence levels

This weight based discrimination!

What does weight have to do with executing cricket skills anyway??

yes, maybe you won’t be fucking Shoaib Akhtar, but fast bowlers break down faster than “third-hand” cars and more often.

Being fat never stopped some of the best batsmen in the game, and Warne showed that twirling your fingers and wrists had nothing to do with how many six packs you had on your abs (as against in them). Plus fat people make great slip fielders. Ask Dwayne Leverock.

It is deplorable that when all other discriminatory barriers are falling everywhere, cricket goes about raising them on grounds of “fitness”.

That’s reassuring Ceci – as long as he hasn’t been brought in to play cricket.

are these the same people that entered into a contract with jaffa cakes? they can hardly blame the players when they choose to endorse their sponsors products.

Jaffa Cakes are a sports snack.

he is not fat! if anything, he’s a teensy bt cuddly. but since when did being a teensy bit cuddly prevent anyone playing cricket? What IS this body fascism? Humph.

Nice Connect 4 link. Are you sponsored by MB Games?

Sponsored by MB and McVities, it seems.

He just scored a 100 for the Lions too, down here in the land of Jesse Ryder, imagine how many runs he could have got if he was fit.

Surely the paraphrase is, in effect:

“Samit Patel does not do what he is told”.

His portly quality is a bi-product of that.

Being fat does not mean one can’t be a good cricketer.
Inzzy,Merv and great W.C Grace spring to mind.
Rather than dropping Samit they should consider sending him to a fat farm [sorry, can't think of an alternative term] and get him fit.

I think he should quit cricket and become a 1920s american ganster. Fat Sam.

Things are not going well for Fat Sam, he made a big thing about going for the IPL but did not get picked.

If they are going to use this as a yardstick, then Sidearse should be dropped too

We hadn’t really noticed that, but we forced one of our mates to watch some of the last Test with us and he kept referring to Sidebottom as ‘the fat one’.

I want to see what flamingos playing Connect 4 would look like. I am sure someone who reads this blog enjoys illustrating such moments with a careful use of photoshop. Ceci…?

i am disappointed, king, that an article about samit patel being fat was not accompanied by a photo of samit patel being fat.

allow me to rectify:

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00703/patel_280×390_703520a.jpg

he’s probably thinking about getting a burger.

What does this mean for Rob Key’s England chances?

I am D Charlton’s bitch and must obey:
http://tinyurl.com/douglasflamingo

this is a joke to be honest! clearly has been picked on, like sidebottom was fit enough to play in the last test!!
and however fitter batty is than samit, batty wouldnt even do half the job!! this is cricket, samit just scored 100 for the lions, what more do coaches want than see their players performing! i feel he was an easy target! just goes to show why england will never be a top team, by leaving players of his talent out!

Brilliant – thank you so much. I thought it’d look a bit like that but in reality, it is so much better. Is that what you dream about KC?

It’s less romantic and there’s more neck stretching involved because the Connect 4’s bigger, but basically, yes.

ksb – Of course Samit is an easy target, especially when he turns side-on.

The Times has an article today that compares Rob Key with Grace, Armstrong, Millburn and Botham – rare company indeed.

http://timesonline.typepad.com/line_and_length/2009/03/tubby-or-not-tu.html

(I’d have liked there to have been a bit more surprise for people when they clicked on the link, but I’ve never understood how to hide hyperlinks in text, and the last part of the URL kind of gives it away. Still, persumably a boycott of the Times is in order.)

I think he resembles an Asian Darren Gough in that picture from the Sun. He was always ‘a bit fat’ but it never seemed to hinder his career. I reckon the fittest Goughie ever got was on Strictly Come Dancing!

That said, surely the point about Patel is that they said to him, ‘you’re not fit enough’ ages ago, then he got fatter! A bit dozy of him, even if he is a talented cricketer.

…as opposed to what happened when the SL cricket management told Arjuna Ranatunga that he was too fat and dropped him.

I seem to remember some sort of senior players revolt! Probably calmed down with a few Mars bars, mind…

Mahinda, your comment reminded me of a couple of classic sledges from Ian Healey:

Ian Healy once became frustrated with an overweight batsman from a South
African provincial side who seemed not the least interested in
scoring runs. Eventually Healy called to the bowler: “Why don’t we put a
Mars bar on a good length to see if we can lure him out of his crease?”

During a WSC final at the SCG where the game had been shortened due to
rain
and the atmosphere was running at about 95% humidity a very
exhausted Arjuna Ranatunga appealed that he had “sprained” something. He
duly asked the umpire for a runner. As clear as a bell through the effects
mic you heard Healey’s legendary reply “you don’t get a runner for being
an
overweight, unfit, fat cunt”.