The English media have already dubbed the Australian Ashes touring party the weakest Australian team ever to tour England.

I’m disappointed in this: it doesn’t go far enough.

Any reasonable, rational, level-headed, honest observer would have to admit that this is not just the weakest Australian cricket team to visit the old country, but literally the worst group of human beings ever to go anywhere.

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There are pigeon-borne viruses that have crossed England’s borders that have done more for the cause of national pride.

There are heroin smugglers who have been a greater credit to humanity than this decrepit assemblage of has-beens, never-will-bes and old-age pensioners.

The consequences for Australia as a cricketing power, and as a sovereign nation, of the selection of this grab-bag of physically incompetent, morally deformed, emotionally retarded mouth-breathing rock apes don’t even bear thinking about.

It’s hard to see how Australia can escape with any self-respect at all unless someone sets fire to all English cricket grounds before the series starts.

But look, as you realise I am a realistic commentator who only wishes to provide sober analysis of sporting matters, so let’s go through the touring party one by one to examine exactly why the selection of this squad qualifies as a hate crime.

Michael Clarke



Oh yes, he’s the captain, people say, and the best batsman in the team, so we have to pick him. But has anyone seen that tattoos on his arms? Gross.

Is that the kind of image we want to project? Also, he’s scored a lot of runs lately and is clearly due to fail miserably. Why would the selectors deliberately pick a man who is about to have a terrible series?

Brad Haddin

Oh really? We’ve gone back to the remainder bin to pluck out the poor man’s Tim Zoehrer? Oh yeah, that’s a step forward.

Why not yank Richard Chee Quee out of retirement, while we’re revisiting history’s failures?

David Warner

David Warner divides opinion: is he a reckless fool, or an incautious idiot? Are we pinning our hopes of blunting the Poms’ new ball on the cricketing equivalent of the Challenger space shuttle disaster?

If we wanted someone to close his eyes and swipe wildly at the swinging ball, we could have picked Barnaby Joyce.



Ed Cowan

I might think Cowan was good for a few dozen runs in the series, if he could lift his head from his Complete Works Of Sartre long enough to judge the line and length of the ball coming towards him.

Phil Hughes

Like all Hugheses, Phil is prone to crying in public and being fat and hairy. Also, leaked Cricket Australia documents indicate that he is scared of grass.

Shane Watson

He’ll pulverise the English attack. Assuming that the English attack suffers collectively from a rare autoimmune disorder that causes them to lose all bodily co-ordination whenever they smell quality deodorant.

Usman Khawaja

No cricketer whose first name begins with a U has ever succeeded in Test cricket. This is not Khawaja’s fault, but clearly God has made up His mind and it’s just not going to happen for him.



It was a similar curse that blighted the career of Scott Muller.

Chris Rogers

Will fail miserably. Doubtful whether he’ll even be able to lift the blanket off his knees, put down his cocoa and stop watching Midsomer Murders long enough to get out in the middle.

Chris Rogers seems to have been selected mainly so that the younger members of the squad can learn about ‘Bodyline’ from someone who was there.

Matthew Wade

Look, Wade is just basically a really bad person.

James Faulkner

Faulkner thinks he’s clever because he bowls left-handed and bats right-handed. He won’t shut up about it. He’s really bugging me.



Screw you, Faulkner, you’re not better than me.

Ryan Harris

Harris should make a great impact in the Ashes series, as long as he is never exposed to the movement of air or the impact of ground beneath his feet.

Because in that case his entire musculo-skeletal structure will crumble to dust. Keep him in a vacuum-sealed bag on a trolley and he should be fine.

Peter Siddle

Siddle needs to take a good hard look at himself. He might think he’s a pretty great bowler, but what of his disturbing secrets?

Are you happy Peter Siddle? Do you think we don’t know what you do at night? You disgust me.

James Pattinson



Pattinson is a party boy. He’ll be arrested on the eve of the first Test for criminal damage after throwing pumpkins at Buckingham Palace. Nice one, Inverarity.

Mitchell Starc

We’ve tried freakishly tall left-arm pacemen before, and Bruce Reid is now held together by spiderwebs. Is that what we want?

This series might kill the lad. Are we going back to the bad old days of the 1970s, when selectors happily sent cricketers to their deaths?

Nathan Lyon

He can spin the ball, but he lacks muscle tone. In fact, he lacks muscle. Apparently the plan is to lull the English into a false sense of security by making them think we’re picking ten-year-old boys with ageing disorders.

Sure, pick Lyon, but it’d be cheaper to send a real Tim Burton puppet.

Jackson Bird



This is a ridiculous name and Jackson Bird is not a real person. Do we think we are stupid?

So there you go. Never before has Australian cricket seen fit to send such a reprehensible gang of losers, halfwits and probable felons overseas to defend our cricketing honour.

The only bright spot is the existence of dedicated journalists to expose this travesty. Thank God for us.