Have the administration singled out a player for him to supplant? The choice of Simon Kerrigan, who appears to be probably not going to make the last XI except if the Oval ends up being an all-out dustbowl, most likely intends that, unfortunately, Monty Panesar’s worldwide vocation is finished, because of a succession of sporadic way of behaving this season which finished in that undignified experience with a Hove bouncer. Gracious, Monty. As David Cameron once told Tony Blair: “you were the future once”. His destruction from the youthful tyro with the world at his feet to the sorry figure he cuts currently is one of the incomparable English cricketing misfortunes of present day times.

Away from the field there’s been a purge in staff as well

With the choice of debutant Andrew Strauss for the Sky Sports editorial box. As you would expect he made an unnatural beginning, conveying more the feeling of a visitor intellectual – some of the time maybe his partners were talking with him – than a genuine pundit, whose job it is to assume responsibility, and tell us definitively what’s happening. Yet, he’s a splendid fellow, is Straussy, and as the series has advanced the previous Britain captain has sunk into the job, and gives indications of genuine commitment. He has a characteristic concision and word economy, and an at this point crude intuition for playing out the vital errand of a reporter – to let you know something fascinating and sagacious which the photos alone don’t. If by some stroke of good luck the equivalent could be said to describe Michael Holding for whom the opportunity has now come to be put on a mission to grass.

As he’s neither English nor Australian nor truly adept at commentating

It’s hazy why Mikey is still in the case in any case. In any case, what especially grinds is his profoundly irritating proclivity for expressing the draining self-evident. “That will not exactly go to the limit”, murmuring passing seriously articulates, as on the screen we see the ball not exactly going to the limit. “Only two runs”, he adds, as we watch the batsmen complete their subsequent run. Etc. Disturbing that might be for us Audience members, essentially any of us at home have not needed to guarantee this Cinders’ major in-ground improvement – the ascent of The Aficionados.

These avocado-and-canary-clad jokes are Australian allies’ response to the Barmy Armed force, and like all Antipodean endeavors to imitate English patio culture, have pulled it off with all mind and energy of a geology educator having a go on the karaoke – a weak and cringe worthy show straight up there with your father in face paint or David Brent moving. As TFT peruse Richard put it on our Facebook page: “The Fan should be the greatest pack of washouts I’ve at any point seen at sport (aside from UK tennis fans). Dressing in similar garments and waving their yellow caps around like a lot of state funded school young ladies. They have a place not at cricket but rather at the yard bowls”.