Why didn't they pick me for England?

Although I am 58 in a few minutes and clearly a stone, or two, overweight since my recent cycling accident I am heartened to know that I am still good enough to play cricket for England!

This revelation might appear optimistic, surprising and even downright delusional, particularly as, although not a bad player in the day, I was never even close to international honours.

So from whence does this apparent hubris stem?

Why do I feel I could have done a legitimate job for England yesterday and certainly feel I could have equalled the contribution made by the likes of Messrs Bairstow, Prior, Bresnan or Anderson, both with bat and ball.

 After all England are currently the best Test team in the world and I am well past my sell-by date, have a dodgy right knee, painful left Achilles, and frozen shoulder to boot.

Ok, as you probably may have expected by now there is a pretext for my flight of fancy and it simply tickled me that the England team went out to field yesterday morning for one ball before mopping up the West Indies innings and then batted the day out for the loss of three wickets. This means that despite both batting and fielding on the same day not all the team contributed to the team effort.  I wonder when this last happened, if ever. Is there another sport where this could possibly happen? Gabriel was caught by Swann off Broad and only Strauss, Cook, Trott, Pietersen and Bell had a bat. This means Messrs Bairstow, Prior, Bresnan and Anderson could have stayed in bed all day.

This is quite different from one of those days when two batsmen have dominated proceedings. England actually batted and fielded!  How could you explain this wonderful game to someone not versed in its vagaries. Can you imagine the conversation at home with the Priors.

"Hi dear, how did you get on today"?

"Not bad love, my pads were a little tight and I think one of my under-gloves needs changing as I swear that's why I perpetrated that errant throw yesterday"

"Yes yes darling but how did you play? You know as wicket-keeper you are such an integral part of the team I'm always worried that you'll overdo it"

"No no sweetheart a relatively easy day for me today considering we batted and bowled"

"So will you require your usual massage"?

"Too tired darling, the life of a professional cricketer is a tough one you know; just ask KP he'll tell you"