2nd Test South Africa v England

[lemonbella]

I’m not marking many people this match because the result means it's officially discounted on the grounds of being wrong.

Graeme 15 (45) 3498

Graeme gets 15 for his batting because he would have got a hundred if AB hadn’t been overly enthusiastic. Graeme had no intention of running then and, besides, had been batting with Kallis for half the day. Technically that makes Graeme’s run out Kallis’ fault, i'm happy with that. He’s got extra points in there for captainly Graeme because there was a lot of shouting to do. He sent the new people out to do shuttle runs so they weren’t traumatised by the post innings yelling. I suspect there may have been silence and the Look of Disappointment as well, and you can’t expect a new person to cope with that.

He gets 45 for his svelteness score because he was svelte despite the unflattering shirt. None of the England players are nearly as svelte, so I think we all know the real winners in the overall scheme of things.

That is possibly the best Graemeyness score he’s ever received. Live on international TV (although I’m not entirely sure he knew it was being filmed, Shaun Pollock certainly didn’t), Graeme casually leant extremely close to a retired South African cricketer. This isn’t noteworthy in itself, being a major hobby of Graeme’s, but then he rolled up his shorts to reveal an area Shaun Pollock referred to as “thigh” but basic anatomical knowledge refers to as “groin” and clearly told Shaun about his big bruise.

Graemeyness is a hard thing to quantify, because it has so many facets, but if ever it were to appear on Wikipedia and a definition was required that scene would be it.

Shaun Pollock, btw, gets 437 points for attempting to poke the bruise and Nasser Hussain gets 13 for asking, in a scandalised voice, “but what was he asking you to touch?”

Dale 7

Dale gets that for spending the first innings virtually naked on the balcony. He’d clearly just forgotten to get dressed that day. He also gets a point for having a batting average of 57, but only on Boxing days. He should get a low mark for his bowling, but I suspect Graeme has told him that it wasn’t the team he’d let down but himself and I can’t punish him again. Besides, they let him go back to the wild for Christmas and it must be hard to adjust.

Large Morkel 9

Oh, Morne, the one time you do well, everyone else forgets they’re supposed to get the batsmen out.

Ryan 10

Did excellent towel carrying and telling Graeme jokes during drinks breaks. Also, he and Friedel managed to spend a significant amount of time sitting on the balcony not holding up a sign that said "I can bowl better than that."