that ain’t cricket

The headline on the news said something like “Bush Beaned,” so I watched closely when the piece ran. They played the tape a couple of times, and something didn’t look right. . . I mean, beyond the obvious.

There’s George, “playing” cricket, and there’s that “wicked googly” bouncing up and hitting him, but the bounce seemed odd. I went online to look for pictures—the ball seems small, and the seams, yes, that’s it. . . . The seams on a cricket ball are right around the circumference, but these seams twisted, like a baseball. . . or a tennis ball!

I kept searching, and sure enough, in a CNN account:

Bush, in a blue shirt with sleeves rolled up, played with tennis balls, which are much softer than stone-hard cricket balls.

Damn straight, they’re softer!

Of course that didn’t stop the Yale cheerleader from macho-ing up and yelling out to the bowler, “Put something on it!”

But that wasn’t the biggest irony of the day. . . sorry, “irony” is too nice a word. . . let’s go with “outrage.” While Bush was making a big show of getting down with the Pakistani peeps by playing their national game, Pakistani cricket’s biggest name was being detained by Pakistani police.

Imran Kahn, hero of the 1992 cricket World Cup, and now an elected official, was arrested with dozens of others in order to quash an anti-Bush rally in advance of the US President’s show of athletic faux prowess.

"Bush professes his policy is to support freedom and democracy and here he is supporting a military dictator," Khan said in a telephone interview with CNN.

Bush, faking it on the hustings and faking it on the pitch, summed it up this way, “Haven’t quite got the skills yet.”

No, George, you don’t.