English cricket: T20 semifinal still possible

Despite all the doom and gloom in the English press, England can still make the semifinals of
the Twenty20 World Championship. They just need a few things to start going their way.

Firstly, for the love of all things holy, whose idea was it to leave the strip clubs open on the day England were due to play?

I know Paul Collingwood has apologised but isn’t it up to us as hosts to say sorry? After all, if the clubs had been closed in the first place, the England players couldn’t have visited them

I mean, we’d all heard about Flintoff being stripped of his captaincy for certain misdemeanours during the other World Cup. Surely the organisers should have put England, stripping, captain and World Cup together and taken precautions?

Secondly, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that England could still sneak in the back way (of the semis, not the strip club).

If England win their last match and all the other results go their way, they cruise in. (For those of you interested in this kind of stuff, you may also want to visit our section on the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and Traps’s favourite Manchester United players.)

Thirdly, there’s been a vast improvement in Collingwood’s form — not only has he apologised, but he has also put together a very useful cameo of three (don’t let me catch anyone sniggering) against the Black Caps, after his disastrous duck in the game against the Proteas.

Fourthly, there’s every chance that Kevin Petersen may finally come off. South Africans are always thrilled to see him come off … it’s coming on that we can’t stand. Although, in fairness to Kev, his reverse sweep dismissal against New Zealand may have been an attempt to lap the ball. Some sort of dance? Can’t be — where would English cricketers have learned anything about lap dancing?

So there’s every prospect of England still being here when the semis come around.

If, and this is purely speculative, they are eliminated after the India match, they can look forward to returning home in time for the Rugby World Cup quarterfinal: Australia against Samoa.