Andre Nel's frustrated

I promise to stop leaving posts about a) Essex and b) Andre Nel (for a few days at least) but you'd hardly expect me to leave out this gem from James Foster's blog. Apparently, during a rain-affected match at Taunton last season, the Essex players tried various board games in their hotel and got hooked on Frustration, a sort of Ludo game from the 1980s with the dice trapped inside a large "popper".

They loved it so much they bought the game off the hotel for a fiver and it is now a regular part of the Essex dressing-room entertainments, making a nice change from poker and computer games. Foster then has this to say:

"Some of our boys end up spewing over that game because frustration really is the operative word. It's all down to the luck of the dice so the boys can get very upset. Andre Nel seems to be the 'King of Frustration' in the Essex dressing-room but that's only because there is no skill involved in the game! Andre's always very quiet when he's not winning but when he's going well he shouts and screams uncontrollably."

I admit that comes as something of a surprise to me. Always had Andre down as a cribbage man.

Comments

[Marius Roodt]

Hey Nella, nice to see you post on this site too. Remember how cross you got when you lost in the final of the 2002 Ludo championship at Benoni Northerns? And how you took it out on Jannie van Vuuren. Saw him the other day, he still walks with a limp. That was a goo day :-)

[Pablo]

Great game, Operation. It is my all-time favourite. However, I'm not so sure about considering it for Freddie. After his second golden duck today, what about something like Twister?

[Mr A Nel]

Kidd.

Foster's a bad loser. Simple as that. He's crap at origami too.

As for cribbage. I hate it. Aunt Helga used to force me to eat it with her over-cooked corned beef and stinky white sauce.

I don't know how the Russians do it. I guess that's why they're so shocking at cricket.

Now piss off.

[johnmc]

Surely an opportunity to see what other cricketers/cricketing institutions can be matched to board games. I would vote:
Monopoly - a great battle between the Australia Test side or the BCCI
Operation - Andrew Flintoff
Trivial Pursuit - the whatever it is called now Sunday League