Everybody Loves Monty

You've got to love Monty. Well, I do. Most of you probably haven't even got the foggiest who he is. He's England's new premier spin bowler. That's cricket. Anyway, he's rapidly becoming a cult figure for his somewhat haphazard fielding (he couldn't catch an STD off a Russian whore). It really is a comic delight to see him in the field. Given that most cricket spectators are the type of people who were uniformly bullied throughout their education, it's easy to see why so many are rooting for Monty. He represents the underdog made good. The slightly incompetent buffoon who's made his way to the top despite an all too glaring deficiency. But in his case, his bowling goes a long way to compensating for his erratic approach to stopping the ball (allowing it to roll through his legs before kicking it into the boundary boards). But will that be enough to cement his place in the team? There are already rumblings that England's extremely pragmatic coach, Duncan Fletcher, might be looking at more prosaic options (a euphemism for people who aren't half the bowler Monty is but can chip in with a few runs at the tail-end of the innings. And catch). I for one hope he resists that temptation. Monty is reportedly working very hard at his catching and deserves his place in the team for entertainment value alone. Long live Monty.