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England v Australia, fourth Test, day two
Jack Leach bowled a no-ball and Steve Smith slightly hit it and then Ben Stokes caught it.
Obviously this was not out because it was a no-ball, but Ben Stokes was not aware of this and so he celebrated what he thought was an overdue dismissal.
He did this by trying to throw the ball to New South Wales directly through the centre of the planet.
We’re not entirely sure why he attempted this impossible task, but we must say, he had a jolly good go.
Here’s Stokes about to throw the ball. One thing we like about this image is the wide range of emotional reactions to what has happened, with only the two lads in England helmets seemingly in agreement about which feeling should be deployed.
Now here’s the moment when Stokes realises he has failed to throw the ball to New South Wales directly through the centre of the planet and is having to instantly come to terms with the solidity of the Earth’s crust.
Sheer bafflement. Also note everyone else’s complete obliviousness to his endeavours.
Stokes’ efforts to throw a cricket ball to New South Wales directly through the centre of the planet may or may not be a metaphor for England’s endeavours on day two of the Old Trafford Test.
Oh dear.
What Ben Stokes clearly understands, which you, KC, as a simple but well-meaning scribe do not understand, is chaos theory.
In particular, that element of chaos theory known as the butterfly effect, in which, I paraphrase (i.e. extract from Wikipedia), a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.
You think that Ben Stokes’s gesture failed to permeate the earth’s crust, which, if you only look so far as the cricket ball itself, is true.
But consider the overnight news from New South Wales:
https://7news.com.au/news/nsw/wild-sydney-weather-sees-trees-brought-down-as-thousands-are-left-without-power-c-439413
QED.
Point taken. Hard to argue with the facts.
Powerful stuff.
It’s science.
FFS
Pressure Drop
Afghanistan v Bangladesh looks a belter of a game.
If he threw the ball through the centre of the earth and out the other side assuming a straight line the ball would emerge somewhere to the east of Campbell Island as per https://www.antipodesmap.com/
Campbell Island – that is one “bottleless get” of an island:
https://youtu.be/T2kU76FQm9s
Walk…can’t spake…etc.
Bert might even be able to help us understand this calculation of how long it would take:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Mechanics/earthole.html
For Foakes’ Sake