England

Are England annoying enough?

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Not in the sense that they vex you with their occasional incompetence. We mean, are they annoying enough to truly challenge the opposition?

We’ve always been a great believer that you can achieve a lot through being really annoying and we don’t see why that wouldn’t apply in international cricket.

Here are some of our recommended tactics, many of which we employ ourself on a daily basis.

  1. Humming – Not just humming, but producing pretty much any sound that can carry a simple melody. The ‘dff’ sound that boys make when they’re pretending to hit a snare drum or when they’re miming a punch to the solar plexus is particularly good. We use it for the theme from Terminator 2 and for Ghostbusters.
  2. Not listening – Let someone talk at you at great length and then, a few moments after they’ve finished, look at them blankly and say ‘what?’
  3. Telling people to shut up – Ask someone a direct question and when they start to answer, say ‘shut up’. Alternatively, when they answer, use tactic 2 – ‘not listening’. At the point when you’ve said ‘what?’ and they’ve started to answer for a second time, say ‘shut up’.

Similar deliveries:

Which of Australia’s three banned ball-tamperers is being the most annoying (and which of them is being the least annoying)? Is Stuart Broad the most annoying cricketer there’s ever been?

8 comments

  1. Annoying pointless banter can be good (as in annoying) also. I nominate my favourite ‘geezer’, Graeme ‘Swanny’ Swann. I find his twitter annoying enough anyway…

  2. Matt Prior, while standing up to the stumps to Graeme Swann, could swat imaginary flies, and flick imaginary dust, off Ricky Ponting’s helmet with his keeper’s glove.

  3. The obnoxious teenage mode variant could be applied to point 2 – just replace “What” with “Wha’evah” and an appalled roll of the eyes.

  4. At the end of a long and elaborate sledge, reply simply, “so’s your face.” The less sense this makes in context, the better. If a rejoinder is forthcoming, respond, “I saw a hedge once, what’s your point?”

    The only man in the world this doesn’t work on is my flatmate, who is further from an Australia call-up than it is possible to describe.

  6. Rolling your eyes and sayinh “wha’evah” is not restricted to teenhage use as far as I know. I use this method all the time with my tiny circle of work colleagues, friends and family.

  7. You’ve got to be careful with eye rolling/wha’evahing to colleagues though.

    I did that to be to my “team leader” once and the consequent bollocking prompted my (long time coming) resignation.

  8. We’ve been saved! The Courier Mail (Aus):

    “This annoying young fast bowler [Stuart Broad], who sometimes carries on like a spoilt brat, may well have bowled England to Ashes glory in a burst of destruction which ripped the heart out of Australia’s batting.”

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