The UK intends to split quotas of food imports with the EU after Brexit. The current favourable deal will have to be renegotiated. Australia’s trade minister Bruce Pombasher is unimpressed. He says, no deal unless the Aussies triumph in the Ashes.
LCD spoke to Pombasher in the Test Match Special commentary box over an improbable amount of cake.
“Yeah, it’s a bloody disgrace,” he opined while munching Battenberg. “It’s gonna wreak havoc over the next three years. There’s no pace, and precious little spin. England haven’t helped themselves by dropping catches all over the shop. They look horribly underprepared.”
Pombasher referred to the close of England’s innings in the first year of the match. “The last wicket was a close call,” he said. “Pretty much 50-50. Well, it went to review and was given out. The strange thing was the Barmy Army. They were shouting ‘Out! Out! Out!’ and started to celebrate.”
“I just don’t get it,” says Pombasher, through a mouthful of black forest gateau. “Normally you Poms are rubbish, but at least try to win a bit. You guys have given us catching practice, and celebrated with us. You can’t trade with people with that attitude. What’s your game?”
It seems like England actually want to lose the Ashes. Barmy Army representative Johnny Bullock took a moment out from constructing a beer snake to talk to us. “We’re all out, and that’s what really matters,” he says, adding another plastic pint glass to the snake. “I’ve always said that it is vital that we get out as soon as possible. Beer snake means beer snake.”
The Aussies have piled on the runs, but the England camp is still bullockish. “They need us more than we need them,” said England coach Oswald “Ozzie” Boycott. “So, in the end, they will capitulate, and we will take the Ashes home as usual. Stick that in your deep mid-wicket and smoke it.”
Ashes to Ashes, dust to dust. There’s many a slip ‘twixt wicket-keeper and gully. Deal or no deal? It’s just not cricket.