It occurred to me...

During reading Matthew Hoggard's recently published autobiography that something very, very bad has happened. Very bad. Very. Verrrrrrry. VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY. Yes...Firstly let me say that Hoggard's autobiography is one of the best cricket books I've ever read, mainly because it's just so damn hillarious, literally a laugh a page and it's not even cricket jokes he just strolls off on random tangents every now and again, for example there was a section of his book lasting 4 pages where he scripted a conversation between his 2 dogs about what they might say about him if they could talk, CRAZY!?!?! Plus he just makes up random words every now and again (like that Inversnaid chap, see I have been revising), I'm not sure if it's just loads of typos, but I'm loving the word: ridonculous.

Anyway, about this verrrry bad thing, this Hoggard bloke was a mighty fine swing bowler, something like 70 games, 340 wickets and at one point he was ranked number four in the world, NUMBER 4!!!! Since when has an ENGLISH bowler been that good??? He was a regular member of the England bowling attack, a key figure in the Ashes 2005 victory. Come the first game in New Zealand, Hoggard was feeling a bit down, his wife was suffering from postnatal depression or something equally depressing, therefore his mind was a bit off, he was bowling a bit wide etc..Well FAIR ENOUGH I say, the woman you love has just given birth and is now feeling shit, you're hardly going to be thinking 'Ah Yes McCullum's batting, must bowl around off stump, he's very strong through the leg side' well I doubt I would be and Hoggard certainly wasn't. It was this point in the book where all the laughter stopped, he described how he felt like crying whenever he bowled but kept it together for the team. Due to his below standard performance in this one game he was dropped for the remaining series, told to go home and spend some time with his wife, Hoggard of course accepted this. His wife Sarah soon turned out to be ok and Hoggard was raring to get back into international cricket, during his absence James Anderson and in particular Stuart Broad took over his place and did a decent job. Hoggard hasn't played since that New Zealand game two years ago.

Like quite a few people out there, Hoggard's absence went unnoticed to me, it was only upon getting his autobiography for my birthday did I think 'O yeah, Hoggy, he was quite good, where'd he go?' The simple fact of the matter is that England dumped him, the ECB described his 'unstable attitude' (and yes that is how they put it) to be an unnecessary work ethic. Never fucking mind this guy was 4TH IN THE WORLD.
Hoggard is still bowling over after over for Yorkshire, still trying to get back into the England team he so badly deserves to be in. The world can be a cruel place.

Yeah...I haven't done a cricket post for a while now, so that was it. IN OTHER NEWS: I wrote a poetry essay today, read a couple of chapters from a different book, stared out my window and condensed my poetry notes, that is actually all I've done today...This summer had better be good to make up for this gurge (that was another made up Hoggard word), I started drafting some bizarre ideas with ANNOYING PERSON on the Drama trip the other day. All we really came up with was making some films, randomly taking a train down to London with a few others and just staying there for no obvious reason for a couple of nights...erm......O yes, that idea except without London and just camping in a randomly selected field, I wasn't too keen on that one but it might be amusing. I have after all got...what 3 months of NOTHINGNESS, I doubt there will be many times in my life where I'll have 3 months of NOTHINGNESS (probably for the best), I plan to make the most of it. Of course if I get ridonculosly bored and everyone ends up hating me for one reason or another (probably due to me telling them repeatedly 'I'm bored') I'll simply conduct my own 'BRING HOGGARD BACK' march...In Northleach.

Tom,
Today's TOMFACT: I don't know if this TOMFACT feature will be permanent, depends if anyone likes the idea of random nuggets of useless probably Lost related information?..........That was a fact. Clearly was.
P.S: BRING BACK THIS ELEPHANT RIDING BOWLER