One-man show

Saturday's was a fine win in quite the most picturesque of surroundings.
The idyllic Greenwich Park resembled nothing so much as a scene from a novel by Jane Austen.
Flowering shrubs at the boundary's edge echoed to the sounds of summer - laughing children, a breeze ruffling the sweet chestnut trees, the thwack of leather on ornamental parakeet.
As the smallest and fluffiest of white clouds skipped euphorically across the azure sky, nothing, it seemed, could blemish the perfection of this early summer's day. Even the neatly trimmed grass on the outfield appeared to incline gently towards the pavilion in generous and heartfelt approval.
How tragic, then, how unforgivable that such an idyl should be so abused, so ransacked, chewed up, should have the very marrow sucked from its being and spat out in ugly gobs of detritus upon the grass, as it was to be by the selfish actions of one, unnameable batsman.

No care did he have for the pink hydrangeas, the exotic birdlife or the quiet majesty of the stately home overlooking the cricket ground.
No thought could he spare for the young lads - and girls, too - who had been hoping desperately to try their hand at a game they had grown to love in the back gardens and holiday beaches of childhood.
Nor could any other appeal to basic generosity of human spirit ever hope to hold sway with Cincinnati's most selfish of batters when he was in this mood. So-called team-mates were reduced to hapless spectators as he carved up the bowling, gleefully tucking into long-hops and good length balls alike.

He offered not the faintest hint of courtesy to the tiring BK attack, apparently delighting in making even the weariest of bowlers weep into his threadbare boots. Pull shots crashed through midwicket. Drives boomed past forlorn fielders at cover, and parakeets shrieked in mortal terror as another missile pierced the tranquil air over long-on.
So self-absorbed, so intent on single-handedly plundering the whopper-filled BK take-away was he, that a bare nine balls were left unbowled by the end of the match.
In all, 110 selfish runs - more than half the 215 required to win - had been voraciously hoovered up by our hungry left-hander.

By noon on Sunday, the Royal Parks Constabulary had issued an e-fit of a man brandishing an awful lot of shots who officers said they would like to talk to in connection with an allegation of disturbing the peace.
The RSPB have now placed ring-necked parakeets on the endangered list after reports of a sudden halt in the mating activities of five nesting pairs.

And some spoke rashly of a re-match.