The England cricket team has been outsourced to France, on grounds of cost. The French are believed to be able to lose Test matches more cheaply than the UK.
The current team is rumoured to be the first French prototype. The players all bear anglicised versions of their names. For example, captain Joe Root is really called Jean Racine.
It is no secret that the newly named BCF (Board de Cricket Français) is keen to lower its overheads. Lengthy tours of Australia and New Zealand are expensive, and there are lots of extras (‘sundries’ down under) that have to be paid for.
In this context, employing a seventeenth century playwright as team captain makes perfect sense.
The Honourable Freddie Tennyson-Jardine has started his own rival, the Real England Cricket Team Union of Marylebone (RECTUM). With players drawn from the cream of the aristocracy, his team has an unbeaten record against all-comers. He has also revised the rules, so that a player may not be dismissed by his social inferior.
This unbeatable combination of privilege and match-fixing, Freddie believes, will lead to a renaissance of Proper British Cricket. RECTUM will lead the race to the bottom.
Back in New Zealand, where the French-produced England team mustered a magnificent 58 all out, BCF apologist B. S. Flannel was in bullish mood.
“For a team comprised mainly of dead Frenchmen, 58 is a cracking total,” flannelled B. S.. “Obviously there will be a few teething troubles, as the French players are used to a pitch 22 metres, not yards, long. There’s many a slip twixt wicketkeeper and gully.”
The charming French have bowled over the Kiwis. The only catch is that they have been on the back foot, and then bailed out.
The BCF has already taken over boules and pétanque. It is considering whether to push French cricket as an Olympic sport.
It’s just not cricket.