Cricket beats halfwits

What a week.

'If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then it probably is a duck'...

There's little I can add to the chorus of boos ringing out in the direction of the ECB after their Texan golden goose turned out to have laid a very rotten egg. Of course, I hope Clarke and the rest of the bumbling halfwits at the ECB who turned Lords into a helipad and dropped English cricket's trousers for a few quid are asked to find alternative employment. Alas, in these days when our best spinners seem to be those in the shirts and ties at the ECB and not those in the whites, I think Clarke and co may just hang on to drag us even deeper into the Hall of Shame over the next couple of years. God I hope not...

It was great to see the game itself rise above the shame of the administrators last week in Antigua.

OK, from an English perspective, we didn't quite manage to do it, but that last hour provided drama and tension on a scale which is just not achievable via the quick hit of 20-20 and more often than not, one day cricket. In that last hour, David Gower got as animated as I've ever heard him. We saw the sunburnt Barmy Army bite nails to the quick. And such was the glee on the Antiguan faces in the crowd, you could have been excused for thinking they were watching Greenidge and Haynes, not Edwards and Powell. And as the drama unfolded and the light failed, I'll bet none of the people in the crowd, the commentary box or those watching at home thought even for one second about 'Sir' Alan, Giles Clarke and co. For that final session, it was all about the cricket and that's exactly how it should always be.

As for the series itself, wasn't this supposed to be the jaunt in the sun for the boys to show everyone that they could play after getting throughly dealt with by India and South Africa? A confidence booster before the real business of this summer? It's not quite happening at the moment is it. It was definitely an improvement on Jamaica, but that wasn't hard was it.

No disrespect to the Windies, but I see the final two games going much the same way as Antigua. It will come down to whether England can get twenty wickets. The positive from the bowling point of view was clearly Swann, who bowled a wider variety of deliveries in that game than Monty has in his whole career, and Broad's continuing improvement. If Swann can keep it up, and with the ability to provide valuable and quick runs down the order, I think he can soon become a key member of the side.

The worry (again) was Harmison. For me, the most exciting part of watching cricket is watching a truly fast, aggressive bowler put the wind up a side. I'm a huge fan of his - watching him bowl at the speed of light at the Aussies on day one at Lords in 2005, hitting Ponting on the melon and taking five for was as good as it gets for me. But watching him amble in, boy boobs jiggling around under the three lions and sweating like a you know what in a playground in Antigua convinced me that his time is up because he just doesn't want it enough any more. It's an insult to his team mates and those supporting him that he can't get himself even half fit to play for England. After all, he's not juggling a day job with cricket like the rest of us. It's his job!! Can you imagine Ryan Giggs running down the wing at Old Trafford with man breasts wobbling about under the red shirt???

Let's not kid ourselves any longer. Trouble is, who else is there???