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A bunch of Cameron Bancroft articles have materialised today because he’s arrived in England after his dinner engagement, ready to lead Durham for a large percentage of the season.
As you all know, we greatly enjoy Bancroft’s self-important public pronouncements and this latest press conference features all the kinds of thing you’ve come to expect.
He talks about being able “to detach myself from this story of being a professional cricketer,” and at one point he says, “me being authentic to others is something that I’m really passionate about.”
But that’s not the best bit. One article quotes Durham’s new captain as referring to his new club as, “The Durham County Cricket Club.”
Many, many years ago, a friend utterly bizarrely advised us to watch an episode of Big Brother on the spurious grounds that one of the contestants said her husband once appeared on “the Ant and Dec.”
This delightfully unexpected definite article has always stayed with us and it pleases us greatly that Cameron Bancroft seems to suffer a similar affliction.
But did he really say it?
We couldn’t live without knowing, so we went and watched the press conference on YouTube.
We can now reveal that the answer to the question ‘Did Cameron Bancroft really say “The Durham County Cricket Club”?’ very much depends on who you ask.
If you ask us, then yes, he definitely said it.
But if you ask YouTube’s auto-subtitles feature, it reckons he said something very different.
Similar deliveries:
We’re pretty sure we know why Jonny Bairstow headbutted Cameron Bancroft
As Cameron Bancroft becomes Durham captain, Mark Wood explains the hierarchy of potential captains
Why did Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft think that cheating using sandpaper was worse than doing the exact same cheating using something that wasn’t technically sandpaper?
Fake news. Kangaroos go up as well as down.
Maybe ‘giant’ really means ‘morbidly obese’ and they actually don’t.
It’s the club that is ‘giant’, not the kangaroos.
I’m comfortable with the use of the definite article in that context.
Optional, not necessary, but a reasonable use for emphasis.
I’m spending time on King Cricket this morning…
…or…I’m spending time on the King Cricket website this morning.
I’m going to see Middlesex play for a while at the end of the day today…
…or…I’m going to see The Middlesex County Cricket Club play…
…Ok, I sort-of see what you mean.
We wonder how many new people will start reading The King Cricket this summer.
To paraphrase Groucho Marx…(or rather to mash Marx with Bancroft)…
…if you can fake authenticity, you’ve got it made.
People in Liverpool refer to The Asda and The Aldi but strangely not The Tesco or The Morrison’s.
Morrison’s is Mozza’s and Sainsbury’s is Saino’s. In my house anyway. The rule round here – if in doubt, abbreviate
I’ve now had a chance to read the rest of his speech.
God he talks a lot of bollocks, doesn’t he?
“detach myself from the story of being a professional cricketer”
Straight from the the Haydos school of elite bollocksery.
It’s what happens when therapy meets highfalutin meets divvy
Incredible, isn’t it?
Except of course it isn’t: Langer has kept this sort of world-class shit-talking alive and well in the Aussie camp, and presumably the young ‘uns think they are demonstrating elite loyalty (commitment, patriotism… who the hell knows) by parroting it.
(Does make me want to throw up, though…)
I had an American friend once who decided his English football team was going to be ‘The Wolves’. I enjoyed it so much I never corrected him.
Well he’s been chuffing helpful hasn’t he? Pfah.