May's pillock of the month

The county season is in full swing so it's time to reveal the nominations for our monthly Pillock of the Month competition. Harbhajan Singh set a record for this last month, earning more than two thirds of your nominations for slapping Sreesanth. Who will follow him this month and earn his ticket for the end-of-year Pillocks' Hall of Shame? The options this month are:

Ravi Bopara for letting it be known he had been approached by the Indian Premier League. Sorry Rav, but much as I'm a fan it was a bit big-headed to go on about how you turned the IPL down. Given your modest record in a limited international career so far (which I'm convinced will improve) you were hardly going to be attracting big bucks - you're no Kevin Pietersen - and it smacked a bit too much of a cry for attention. Let your batting for Essex do the talking for you.

The England batsmen and umpires in the first Test at Lord's, for being paranoid about playing in iffish light and thus denying the paying spectators half a day's cricket on both the Thursday and the Friday and perhaps preventing a result. Top-level cricketers who have already made a fifty partnership with little trouble should not be so keen to walk off when it gets gloomy and umpires should consider the fans first.

Health & Safety bureaucrats who have demanded a public inquiry over the Brit Oval's planned expansion. Some 2,000 extra seats and a hotel are in jeopardy because the Health & Safety Executive has suddenly noticed the large green gas-holders behind the Oval and is worried that they may explode during a Test match. Never mind that the gas-holders have been there for more than 100 years without going pop. Surrey point out, not without justification, that there are a few active gas-holders near the London 2012 site in the East End, too, and no one is saying we should stop building for the Olympics.

Vijay Mallya, owner of the Bangalore IPL franchise, for turning on his team. Apparently, Bangalore's embarrassing failure in the IPL was all Rahul Dravid's fault for selecting the wrong team and Mallya never wanted the players he was saddled with. He wasn't saying that after Bangalore won their second match of the tournament against Mumbai, of course. Mallya, who made his money from selling alcohol, said he had more of a clue about Twenty20 cricket than Dravid, for all his Test caps. In which case, if he had doubts, why make Dravid captain and why not take more of a role in selection instead of whinging about it? Mind you, Mallya has behaved no worse than any stroppy sports team owner. Just ask Avram Grant.

New Zealand for emulating their rugby union brothers and choking when victory was in their grasp at Old Trafford. Effectively 205 without loss in their second innings, they proceeded to fall apart in the face of Monty Panesar's spin, setting England less than 300 for an unlikely win and then made no impact with their bowling. It should be Daniel Vettori, not Michael Vaughan, who holds a 1-0 lead this series.

The Pigeons at the Oval. One of their number was hit by a hard late cut from Matt Nicholson last week and killed. According to witnesses at the ground, the poor stiff birdie was then set upon by his so-called friends, proving that pigeons will eat anything, even each other. Rana Naved-ul-Hasan rescued the bird's dignity by carrying his mangled carrion to the boundary. I understand that the Times correspondent's description of the cannibalism was cut so as not to offend that noted naturalist Simon Barnes.

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Comments

[Harmeet Virk]

This " pillock of the month" is great, i cant believe the bangalore owner, Rahul Dravid is one of the Greatest Indian batsmen and is certainly in the top 50 of the all time world with over 10000 runs in tests i don't think Vijay Mallya has done his homework =]

[Yorkshire Fan]

Having attended all bore days…sorry four days, of the Surrey v Yorkshire game at the Oval I can tell you that it was touch and go whether we were witnessing pigeon cannibalism or necraphilia. I could have checked through my binoculars but thought better of it. Pigeons are very much Satan’s winged minions in my opinion and best left to their own devices.

Personally I’d have nominated another pillock from that match – Usman Afzaal. Towards the end of the second day Afzaal had an appeal against Jacques Rudolph turned down, at which point he threw the ball petulantly into the ground, resulting in a number of “Get her” type comments from the crowd and three penalty points under the ECB disciplinary code. Worth noting that next ball Rudolph moved down the pitch and smacked the ball over Afzaal’s head for four. A shot that met with approval from both Surrey & Yorkshire supporters. Well, we can all spot a pillock when we see one can’t we…

[Greg Lansdowne]

As Communications Manager of Essex County Cricket Club it has been disappointing to view the bad publicity that Ravinder Bopara has commanded over the last month - particularly because much of it has not been of his doing. I would like to point out that Ravi was not responsible for the leak to the Press Association that brought the approach out into the open in the first place. The subsequent quotes attributed to him - where it was implied that he was putting pressure on the ECB to pick him otherwise he would accept the next offer from the IPL - were also extremely unfortunate, coming as they did from interviews given at a 'Chance to Shine' event that Ravi had given up his time to attend. Knowing Ravi in a professional capacity I can honestly say he is one of the most grounded cricketers you could wish to meet - as a result I am confident when I say the quotes that made the headlines thereafter would have been taken out of context.

[grumpy old man]

My Father spent the Blitz as part of a damage control team to repair gas holders hit by German bombs, He was 16 years old, job experience meaning something in those days. The trick is to fill the gas holder to a point where the gas/air mix is too rich to support compustion. Hence a 250kg bomb could explode in the gas holder without setting the gas off. The safety elf has my vote.

[Andrew Nixon]

I'm going for the prize pillock who wrote the playing conditions for Division Five of the World Cricket League, which state that replaying one rained off game is better than replaying a whole round of rained off matches.