Column

Tales From The Locker Room

Murder is a vile deed. A foul ... A mistake. It’s part of school curriculum now. It’s much a fact as the sky being blue, Mount Everest being white or Michael Jackson being a science exhibit, also known as the human kaleidoscope.

Yup, it’s now common knowledge that Roger Federer is a murderer. Perhaps the right term would be Roger the ‘serial killer’. A man who has murdered tennis and he’s reduced all Grand Slam finals, redundant and meaningless.

Already the A.T.P. (Association of Tennis Professionals) is contemplating changing the rules so that before the start of every Grand Slam, Roger is presented with the winner trophy amidst great pomp and splendour.

He is then led out to a nearby hillstation, where he is made to ski in peace, far from any tennis court where he could continue his murderous spree.

Meanwhile the Grand Slam tournament will continue using all the other tennis professionals with the finals being contested for the top position available which now is the runner up spot.

Here at least you’ll get some excitement. Will Roddick prevail, will Nadal come through, will Blake bleed, a resurgent Gonzalvez, these tennis questions can now be tackled in peace with the mass murderer Federer locked up far away on some ski slope.

However, murder is not just a fact of tennis. It is thanks to Tiger Woods, a fact of golf as well, and thanks to those genocidal maniacs ‘the Aussies’ also a fact of cricket today.

The question now is how do we stop these maniacs from murdering cricket with the world cup just six weeks away. Folks, there seems to be only one solution to stop the homicidal spree prevalent in cricket today.

This is what I propose. Australia can field only upto 4 Australian players. The rest of their team must be selected from the Fiji Islands, Papua New Guinea and the Berring Sea. In turn 2 Australians must be made available for each of the other cricketing countries.

For example, Ricky Ponting and Brett Lee could turn up for India. In the case of England, three Australians must feature and in the case of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, four and five should be the number of Australians.

Whilst Greg Chappel may or may not be returned to Australia, this above formula is the only way to stop the carnage. We may not be able to catch the Beer can murderer, but let’s at least curb the Aussies.